II. CHALDEAN TEMPLES
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES. Nimrod B.C. 2234 ? Urukh. Bowariyeh, Wurka 2093 Ilgi 2070 Chedorlaomer 1976 Ismi Dagon 1850 Shamas Vul. Kaleh Sherghat 1800 Sin Shada. Wuswus? 1700 Sur Sin 1660 Purna Puryas 1600 Arab conquerors 1500 ?[67]
Already the names of fifteen or sixteen kings belonging to these old dynasties have been recovered, and the remains of some ten or twelve temples have been identified as founded by them; but unfortunately none of these are in a sufficiently perfect state to afford any certainty as to their being entirely of this age, and all are in such a state of ruin that, making use of all the information we possess, we cannot yet properly restore a temple of the old Chaldean epoch.
Notwithstanding this, it is a great gain to the history of architecture to have obtained so much knowledge as we have of temples which were only known to us before from the vague descriptions of the Greeks, and which are the earliest forms of a type of temples found afterwards continually cropping up in the East.
It would be contrary to all experience to suppose that a people of Turanian origin should be without temples of some sort, but, except the description by the Greeks of the temple or tomb of Belus, we have nothing to guide us. We have now a fair idea what the general outline of their temples was, and even if we cannot trace their origin, we can at least follow their descendants. There seems now no doubt but that many, perhaps most, of the Buddhist forms of architecture in India and further eastward, were derived from the banks of the Euphrates. Many of the links are still wanting; but it is something to know that the Birs Nimroud is the type which two thousand years afterwards was copied at Pagahn in Burmah, and Boro Buddor in Java; and that the descent from these can easily be traced in those countries and in China to the present day.
The principal reason why it is so difficult to form a distinct idea of this old form of temple is, that the material most employed in their construction was either crude, sun-dried, or very imperfectly-burnt bricks; or when a better class of bricks was employed, as was probably the case in Babylon, they have been quarried and used in the construction of succeeding capitals. A good deal also is owing to the circumstance that those who have explored them have in many cases not been architects, or were persons not accustomed to architectural researches, and who consequently have failed to seize the peculiarities of the building they were exploring.
Under these circumstances, it is fortunate that the Persians did for these temples exactly what they accomplished for the palace forms of Assyria. They repeated in stone in Persia what had been built in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris with wood or with crude bricks. It thus happens that the so-called tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadæ enables us to verify and to supply much that is wanting in the buildings at Babylon, and to realise much that would be otherwise indistinct in their forms.
The oldest temple we know of at present is the Bowariyeh at Wurka (Erek), erected by Urukh, at least 2000 years B.C.; but now so utterly ruined, that it is difficult to make out what it originally was like. It seems, however, to have consisted of two storeys at least: the lowest about 200 feet square, of sun-dried bricks; the upper is faced with burnt bricks, apparently of a more modern date. The height of the two storeys taken together is now about 100 feet, and it is nearly certain that a third or chamber storey existed above the parts that are now apparent.[68]
The Mugheyr Temple[69] is somewhat better preserved, but in this case it is only the lower storey that can be considered old. The cylinders found in the angles of the upper part belong to Nabonidus, the last king of the later Babylonian kingdom; and the third storey only exists in tradition. Still, from such information as we have, we gather that its plan was originally a rectangle 198 feet by 133, with nine buttresses in the longer and six in the shorter faces. The walls slope inwards in the ratio of 1 in 10. Above them was a second storey 119 feet by 75, placed as is usual nearer one end of the lower storey, so as to admit of a staircase being added at the other. It is 47 feet distant from the south-eastern end, and only 28 or 30 from the other; but whether the whole of this was occupied by a flight of steps or not is by no means clear. Taken altogether, the plan and probable appearance of the building when complete may have been something like that represented in Woodcuts Nos. 48 and 49, though there are too many elements of uncertainty to make it a restoration which can altogether be depended upon.
The typical example of this class of temples is the Birs Nimroud,[70] near Babylon. It is true that as it now stands every brick bears the stamp of Nebochadnassar, by whom it was repaired, perhaps nearly rebuilt; but there is no reason for supposing that he changed the original plan, or that the sacred form of these temples had altered in the interval. It owes its more perfect preservation to the fact of the upper storey having been vitrified, after erection, by some process we do not quite understand. This now forms a mass of slag, which has to a great extent protected the lower storeys from atmospheric influences.
In so far as it has been explored, the lower storey forms a perfect square, 272 feet each way. Above this are six storeys, each 42 feet less in horizontal dimensions. These are not placed concentrically on those below them, but at a distance of only 12 feet from the south-eastern edge, and consequently 30 feet from the N.W., and 21 feet from the two other sides.
The height of the three upper storeys seems to have been ascertained with sufficient correctness to be 15 feet each, or 45 feet together. Unfortunately no excavation was undertaken to ascertain the height of the lowest and most important storey. Sir Henry Rawlinson assumes it at 26; and I have ventured to make it 45, from the analogy of the tomb of Cyrus and the temple at Mugheyr. The height of the two intermediate storeys, instead of being 22 feet 6 inches, as we might expect, was 26, which seems to have resulted from some adjustment due to the chambers which ranged along their walls on two sides. The exact form and dimensions of these chambers were not ascertained, which is very much to be regretted, as they seem the counterpart of those which surrounded Solomon’s Temple and the Viharas in India, and are consequently among the most interesting peculiarities of this building.
No attempt was made to investigate the design of the upper storey, though it does not seem that it would be difficult to do so, as fragments of its vaulted roof are strewed about the base of the tower-like fragment that remains, from which a restoration might be effected by any one accustomed to such investigations.[71] What we do know is that it was the cella or sanctuary of the temple.[72] There probably also was a shrine on the third platform.
This temple, as we know from the decipherment of the cylinders which were found on its angles, was dedicated to the seven planets or heavenly spheres, and we find it consequently adorned with the colours of each. The lower, which was also richly panelled, was black, the colour of Saturn; the next, orange, the colour of Jupiter; the third, red, emblematic of Mars; the fourth, yellow, belonging to the sun; the fifth and sixth, green and blue respectively, as dedicated to Venus and Mercury; and the upper probably white, that being the colour belonging to the Moon, whose place in the Chaldean system would be uppermost.
Access to each of these storeys was obtained by stairs, probably arranged as shown in the plan; these have crumbled away or been removed, though probably traces of them might still have been found if the explorations had been more complete.
Another temple of the same class was exhumed at Khorsabad about twenty years ago by M. Place. It consisted, like the one at Borsippa, of seven storeys, but, in this instance, each was placed concentrically on the one below it: and instead of stairs on the sloping face, a ramp wound round the tower, as we are told was the case with the temple of Belus at Babylon. The four lower storeys are still perfect: each of them is richly panelled and coloured as above mentioned, and in some parts even the parapet of the ramp still remains in situ. The three upper storeys are gone, but may be easily restored from those below, as was done by M. Place, as shown in the annexed woodcut. According to him, it was an observatory, and had no cella on its summit. If this was the case it was a Semitic temple, and belongs to a quite different religion from that whose temples we have been describing. But unfortunately there is no direct evidence to determine whether it had such a chamber or not. My own impressions on the subject are decidedly at variance with those of M. Place, but until some bas-reliefs are discovered containing representations of these temples and of their cells, we shall probably hardly ever know exactly what the form of the crowning member really was. From the imitations in modern times we seem to see dimly that it was conical, and possibly curvilinear. The dimensions of this tower at Khorsabad were, 150 feet square at the base and 135 high from the pavement to the platform on its summit. Its base, however, was at a considerable elevation above the plain, so that when seen from below it must have been an imposing object.
The inscriptions at Borsippa and elsewhere mention other temples of the same class, and no doubt those of Babylon were more magnificent than any we have yet found; but they must always have been such prominent objects, and the materials of which they were composed so easily removed, that it is doubtful if anything more perfect will now be found.
The Mujelibé, described by Rich, and afterwards explored without success by Layard, is probably the base of the great temple of Belus described by the Greeks; but even its dimensions can now hardly be ascertained, so completely is it ruined. It seems, however, to be a parallelogram of about 600 feet square,[73] and rising to a height of about 140 feet; but no trace of the upper storeys exist, nor indeed anything which would enable us to speak with certainty of the form of the basement itself. If this is the height of the basement, however, analogy would lead us to infer that the six storeys rose to a height of about 450 feet; and with the ziggurah or sikra on their summit, the whole height may very well have been the stadium mentioned by Strabo.[74]
As before mentioned, p. 158, we have fortunately in the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadæ (Woodcuts Nos. 84-86) a stone copy of these temples; in this instance, however, so small that it can hardly be considered as more than a model, but not the less instructive on that account. Like the Birs Nimroud, the pyramid consists of six storeys: the three upper of equal height, in this instance 23½ inches; the next two are equal to each other, and, as in the Birs Nimroud, in the ratio of 26 to 15, or 41 inches. The basement is equal to the three upper put together, or 5 ft. 9 in., making a total of 18 ft. 4 in.[75] The height of the cella is equal to the height of the basement, but this may be owing to the small size of the whole edifice, it being necessary to provide a chamber of a given dimension for the sepulchre. In the larger temples, it may be surmised that the height was divided into four nearly equal parts; one being given to the basement, one to the two next storeys, one to the three upper storeys, and the fourth to the chamber on the summit.
There is one other source from which we may hope to obtain information regarding these temples, and that is, the bas-reliefs on the walls of the Assyrian palaces. They drew architecture, however, so badly, that it is necessary to be very guarded in considering such representations as more than suggestions; but the annexed woodcut (No. 54) does seem to represent a four-storeyed temple, placed on a mound, with very tolerable correctness, and if the upper storey had not been broken away the drawing might have given us a valuable hint as to the form and purposes of the cella, which was the principal object of the erection. Its colouring, too, is gone; but the certain remains of symbolical colours at Borsippa and Khorsabad confirm so completely the Greek accounts of the seven-coloured walls of Ecbatana that with the other indications of the same sort extant that branch of the inquiry may be considered as complete.
It is to be hoped that now that the thread is caught, it will be followed up till this form of temple is thoroughly investigated; for to the philosophical student of architectural history few recent discoveries are of more interest. There hardly seems a doubt but that many temples found further eastward are the direct lineal descendants of these Babylonian forms, though we as yet can only pick up here and there the missing links of the chain of evidence which connects the one with the other. We know, however, that Buddhism is essentially the religion of a Turanian people, and it has long been suspected that there was some connection between the Magi of Central Asia and the priests of that religion, and that some of its forms at least were elaborated in the valley of the Euphrates. If the architectural investigation is fully carried out, I feel convinced we shall be able to trace back to their source many things which hitherto have been unexplained mysteries, and to complete the history of this form of temple and of the religion to which it belonged, from the Bowariyeh at Wurka, built 2000 years B.C., to the Temple of Heaven erected in the city of Pekin within the limits of the present century.
The only exception to the class of temple mounds found in Chaldea is the ruin of Wuswus, at Wurka,[76] which seems to partake of the character of a palace. Whether it is or not is by no means clear, as the interior is too much ruined for its plan to be traced with certainty, and its date cannot be fixed from any internal evidence. Some of the bricks used in its construction bear the name of Sin Shada 1700 B.C., but it is suspected they may have been brought from an older edifice. The same sort of panelling was used by Sargon at Khorsabad 1000 years after the assumed date; and panelling very like it is used even in the age of the Pyramids (Woodcuts Nos. 11 and 12), 1000 years at least before that time. With more knowledge we may recognise minor features which may enable us to discriminate more exactly, but at present we only know that this class of panelling was used for the adornment of external walls from the earliest ages down at least to the destruction of Babylon. It was probably used with well-marked characteristics in progression of style; but these we have yet to ascertain. Externally the Wuswus is a parallelogram 256 ft. by 173. Like almost every building in the Euphrates valley in those ancient times, instead of the sides facing the cardinal points of the compass, as was the case in Egypt in the Pyramid age, the angles point towards them. In this case the entrance is in the north-east face. The centre apparently was occupied by a court; and opposite the entrance were two larger and several smaller apartments, the larger being 57 ft. by 30. The great interest of the building lies in the mode in which the external walls were ornamented (Woodcuts Nos. 56 and 57). These were plastered and covered by an elaborate series of reedings and square sinkings, forming a beautiful and very appropriate mode of adorning the wall of a building that had no external openings.
This system is carried still further in a fragment of a wall in the same city, but of uncertain date. In this instance these reedings—there are no panels in the smaller fragment—and the plain surfaces are ornamented by an elaborate mosaic of small cones about 3 or 3½ in. long. The butt or thicker end of these is dipped in colour, and they are then built up into patterns as shown in the woodcut No. 58. It is probable that the walls of the Wuswus were adorned with similar patterns in colours, but being executed in less durable materials, have perished. Indeed, from the accounts which we have, as well as from the remains, we are justified in asserting that this style of architecture depended for its effect on colour as much, at least, if not more, than on form. Could colour be made as permanent this might frequently be wise, but too great dependence on it has deprived us of half the knowledge we might otherwise possess of the architectural effects of other times.
III. ASSYRIAN PALACES
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES. Shalmaneser I. founded Nimroud B.C. 1290 Tiglathi Nin, his son (Ninus?) 1270 Tiglath Pileser 1150 Asshur-bani-pal (north-west palace, Nimroud) 886 Shalmaneser II. (central palace, do.) 859 Shamas Iva 822 Iva Lush IV 810 Interregnum. Tiglath Pileser II. (south-eastern palace, Nimroud) 744 Shalmaneser IV 726 Sargon (palace, Khorsabad) 721 Sennacherib (palace, Koyunjik) 704 Esarhaddon (south-western palace, Nimroud) 680 Sardanapalus (central palace, Koyunjik) 667 Destruction of Nineveh 625
All the knowledge which we in reality possess regarding the ancient palatial architecture of the Euphrates valley[77] is derived from the exploration of the palaces erected by the great Assyrian dynasty of Nineveh during the two centuries and a half of its greatest prosperity. Fortunately it is a period regarding the chronology of which there is no doubt, since the discovery of the Assyrian Canon by Sir Henry Rawlinson,[78] extending up to the year 900 B.C.: this, combined with Ptolemy’s Canon, fixes the date of every king’s reign with almost absolute certainty. It is also a period regarding which we feel more real interest than almost any other in the history of Asia. Almost all the kings of that dynasty carried their conquering arms into Syria, and their names are familiar to us as household words, from the record of their wars in the Bible. It is singularly interesting not only to find these records so completely confirmed, but to be able to study the actual works of these very kings, and to analyse their feelings and aspirations from the pictures of their actions and pursuits which they have left on the walls of their palaces.
From the accounts left us by the Greeks we are led to suppose that the palaces of Babylon were superior in beauty and magnificence to those of Nineveh; and, judging from the extent and size of the mounds still remaining there, it is quite possible that such may have been the case; but they are so completely ruined, and have been so long used as quarries, that it is impossible to restore, even in imagination, these now formless masses.
One thing seems nearly certain, which is, that no stone was used in their construction. If, consequently, their portals were adorned with winged bulls or lions, they must have been in stucco. If their walls were covered with scenes of war or the chase, as those of Nineveh, they must have been painted on plaster; so that, though their dimensions may have been most imposing and their splendour dazzling, they must have wanted the solidity and permanent character so essential to true architectural effect.
It is the employment of stone which alone has enabled us to understand the arrangements of the Assyrian palaces. Had not their portals been marked by their colossal genii, we should hardly have known where to look for them; and if the walls of their apartments had not been wainscoted with alabaster slabs, we should never have been able to trace their form with anything like certainty. Practically, all we know of Assyrian art is due to the fact of their having so suitable a material as alabaster close at hand, and to the skill with which they knew how to employ it. Had their walls only been plastered, the mounds of Khorsabad and Nimroud would have remained as mysterious now as they were before Layard and Botta revealed to us their splendours.
NINEVEH.
Notwithstanding the wonderful results that were achieved in the ten or twelve years during which the Assyrian explorations were pursued with activity, it is by no means impossible but that much more still remains to reward an energetic and skilful research in these mounds. Still, seven palaces have been more or less perfectly exhumed; four at Nimroud, two at Koyunjik, and one at Khorsabad. Among these we have the palaces of Sennacherib and Sardanapalus, of Esarhaddon, Sargon, Shalmaneser, and probably of Tiglath Pileser. Consequently the palaces of all the great kings, whose names are so familiar to us, are laid bare. Beyond these, the palace of Asshur-bani-pal worthily commences the series before the kings of Assyria came into contact with the inhabitants of Syria, and consequently before their Biblical record begins. It may be that other works of the same kings may be discovered, or the buildings of some less celebrated monarch, but if we do not know all that is to be known, we may rest assured that we already have acquired the greater part of the knowledge that is to be obtained from these explorations.
NIMROUD.
The oldest of the buildings hitherto excavated in Assyria is the North-West Palace at Nimroud, built by Asshur-bani-pal, about the year 884 B.C. Though not the largest, it more than makes up for this deficiency by the beauty of its sculptures and the general elegance of its ornaments. As will be seen by the annexed woodcut (No. 58), the excavated portion of the palace is nearly a square, about 330 ft. each way. The principal entrance was on the north, at the head of a noble flight of steps leading from the river to the level of the terrace on which the palace stood. From this, two entrances, adorned with winged bulls, led to a great hall, 152 ft. in length by 32 in width, at the upper end of which was situated the throne, and at the lower a smaller apartment or vestibule opened on the terrace that overlooked the river. Within the great hall was one of smaller dimensions, opening into the central court of the palace, the entrance of which was so arranged as to ensure privacy, proving that it partook of the nature of the private apartment or hareem of the palace. To the eastward of this was a suite of apartments, three deep, decreasing in width as they receded from the light, but so arranged that the inner apartments must have been entirely dark had the walls been carried to the ceiling. As will, however, be presently explained in describing Khorsabad, it is more than probable that the walls extended to only half the height of the rooms, and formed terraces with dwarf pillars on their summits, between which light was introduced, and they in fact formed the upper storey of the building. To the south was a double suite, apparently the banqueting halls of the palace; and to the westward a fourth suite, more ruined, however, than the rest, owing to its being situated so near the edge of the terrace. As far as can be made out, the rooms on this face seem to have been arranged three deep: the outer opening on the terrace by three portals, the central one of which had winged bulls, but the lateral seem to have been without these ornaments; the whole façade being about 330 ft. in extent, north and south.
All these apartments were lined with sculptured slabs, representing mostly either the regal state of the sovereign, his prowess in war, or amusements during peace, but many of them were wholly devoted to religious subjects. Beyond these apartments were many others, covering at least an equal extent of ground, but their walls having been only plastered and painted, the sun-burnt bricks of which they were built have crumbled again to their original mud. It is evident, however, that they were inferior to those already described, both in form and size, and applied to inferior purposes.
The mound at Nimroud was so much extended after this palace was built, and so covered by subsequent buildings, that it is now impossible to ascertain either the extent or form of this, which is the only palace of the older dynasty known. It will therefore perhaps be as well to turn at once to Khorsabad, which, being built wholly by one king, and not altered afterwards, will give a clearer idea of the position and arrangements of an Assyrian palace than we can obtain from any one on the Nimroud mound. It has besides this the advantage of being the only one so complete and so completely excavated as to enable us to form a correct idea of what an Assyrian palace really was and of all its arrangements.
KHORSABAD.[80]
The city of Khorsabad was situated about fifteen miles from Nineveh, in a northerly direction, and was nearly square in plan, measuring about an English mile each way. Nearly in the centre of the north-western wall was a gap, in which was situated the mound on which the palace stood. It seems to have been a peculiarity common to all Assyrian palaces to be so situated. Their builders wisely objected to being surrounded on all sides by houses and walls, and at the same time sought the protection of a walled enclosure to cover the gateways and entrances to their palaces. At Koyunjik and Nimroud the outer face of the palace was covered and protected by the river Tigris; and here the small brook Kausser flows past the fort, and, though now an insignificant stream, it is by no means improbable that it was dammed up so as to form a lake in front of the palace when inhabited. This piece of water may have been further deepened by excavating from it the earth necessary to raise the mound on which the palace stood.
That part of the mound in this instance which projected between the walls was a square of about 650 ft. each way, raised about 30 ft. above the level of the plain, and protected on every side by a supporting wall cased with stone of very beautiful masonry (Woodcut No. 60). Behind this, and inside the city, was a somewhat lower mound, about 300 ft. in width and 1300 or 1400 ft. in length, on which were situated the great portals of the palace, together with the stables and offices, and, outside the walls of the palace properly so called, the hareem.
All the principal apartments of the palace properly so called were revêted with sculptural slabs of alabaster, generally about 9 ft. in height, like those at Nimroud; these either represent the wars or the peaceful amusements of King Sargon, commemorate his magnificence, or express his religious feelings.
The great portals that gave access to the palace of Khorsabad from the city were among the most magnificent of those yet discovered. The façade in which they stood presented a frontage of 330 ft., in which were three portals; the central one flanked by great human-headed bulls 19 ft. in height, and on each side two other bulls 15 ft. high, with a giant strangling a lion between them, as shown in the woodcut (No. 62), representing what still remained of them when uncovered by M. Botta, and now forming one of the principal ornaments of the British Museum. These portals were reached from the city by a flight of steps, now entirely destroyed, but which there can be little difficulty in restoring from what we find at Persepolis and elsewhere.
These portals led to the great outer court of the palace, measuring 315 ft. by 280 between the buttresses with which it was adorned all round. On the right hand were six or seven smaller courts surrounded by the stables and outhouses of the palace, which were approached by a ramp on the outside, at the head of which was a block of buildings containing the cellarage, and generally the stores of eatables. On the left hand of this court were the metal stores, each room having been appropriated to iron, copper, or other such materials, and behind them, outside the palace, was the hareem.[81]
In the northern angle, a rather insignificant passage formed a means of communication between this great outer court and the next, which was 360 ft. long by 200 wide, and probably open to the country, at least in front of the great portals. On the inner side of this second court a magnificent portal opened into what appears to have been the residential portion of the palace, measuring nearly 300 by 500 ft. over all.
The proper entrance to this court was by the ramp before alluded to, which was indeed the only access to the palace for chariots and horsemen. From the second court, through the only vaulted passage in the palace, access was obtained to the state apartments looking over the country. The three principal of these are shown to a larger scale in the woodcut (No. 63), with their dimensions figured upon them. The next woodcut (No. 64) is a restored section of these apartments, showing what their arrangement was, and the mode in which it is conceived they were roofed, according to the information gathered on the spot, and what we find afterwards practised at Persepolis and elsewhere.[82]
It will be observed that the area covered by the walls is of nearly the same extent as that of the rooms themselves, so that the galleries formed in fact an upper storey to the palace; and thus, in the heat of the day, the thickness of the walls kept the inner apartments free from heat and glare, while in the evenings and mornings the galleries formed airy and light apartments, affording a view over the country, and open on every side to the breezes that at times blow so refreshingly over the plains. It will also be observed that by this arrangement the direct rays of the sun could never penetrate into the halls themselves, and that rain, or even damp, could easily be excluded by means of curtains or screens.
The whole of these state-rooms were revêted with sculptured alabaster slabs, as shown in the section; above which the walls were decorated with conventional designs painted on stucco, remains of which were found among the débris.
The external face of this suite, as seen from the north-eastern court, was probably something very like what is shown in the woodcut (No. 66), though there are less materials for restoring the exterior than there are for the internal parts of the palace. The arched entrance to the court, shown on the left, is certain: so also, I conceive, is the mode in which the light was introduced into the apartments. The details of the pillars are not so certain, though not admitting of much latitude of doubt.
As before mentioned, outside the palace stood the hareem, of a somewhat irregular form, but measuring 400 ft. by 280, (on left of plan, woodcut No. 61). The whole of its external walls are adorned with reeded pilasters and panels like those of the Wuswus at Wurka (Woodcut No. 61), which is not the case with any other part of the palace. It has only one small external opening from the terrace, and another, which may be called a concealed one, from the great outer court. Internally its arrangements are very remarkable. First there is an outer court into which these two entrances open, and within that two other courts, on whose side are extended what may be called three complete suites of apartments, very similar to each other in arrangement, though varied in dimensions. It looks as if each was appropriated to a queen, and that their relative magnificence accorded with the dignity of the person to whom it was assigned. But are we justified in assuming that Sargon had three queens, and only that number of legitimate wives? Assuming this, however, there is still room in this hareem for any number of concubines and their attendants.
The central court of the hareem is one of the richest discoveries that rewarded M. Place’s industry. It was adorned with six free-standing statues—the smaller court with two—and the walls were wainscoted with enamelled tile representing the king, his vizier, lions, eagles, vines and fruits, and other objects in a bright yellow colour on a blue ground. The whole is, in fact, one of the most curious and interesting discoveries yet made in these palaces.
As it can hardly admit of a doubt that this was really the hareem of the palace, it is curious that such a building as the observatory described above (p. 162), should have been erected in its immediate proximity. Every one ascending the ramp or standing on its summit must have looked into its courts, unless they were covered with awnings or roofs in some manner we do not quite understand; and we can hardly assume that such a tower was intended as the praying place of the king and the king only. The fact is undoubted, however we may explain it.
From the above description it will be observed that in every case the principal part, the great mass, of the palace was the terrace on which it stood, which was raised by artificial means to a height of 30 ft. and more, and, as shown in the illustration (Woodcut No. 60), carefully revêted with stone. On this stood the palace, consisting principally of one great block of private apartments situated around an inner square court. From this central mass two or three suites of apartments projected as wings, so arranged as to be open to the air on three sides, and to give great variety to the outline of the palace as seen from below, and great play of light and shade in every aspect under which the building could be surveyed. So far also as we can judge, the whole arrangements were admirably adapted to the climate, and the ornaments not only elegant in themselves, but singularly expressive and appropriate to the situations in which they are found.
Another most important discovery of M. Place is that of the great arched gates of the city. These were apparently always constructed in pairs—one for the use of foot-passengers, the other for wheeled carriages, as shown by the marks of wheels worn into the pavement in the one case, while it is perfectly smooth in the other.
Those appropriated to carriages had plain jambs rising perpendicularly 12 or 15 ft. These supported a semicircular arch, 18 ft. in diameter, adorned on its face with an archivolt of great beauty, formed of blue enamelled bricks, with a pattern of figures and stars of a warm yellow colour, relieved upon it.
The gateways for foot-passengers were nearly of the same dimensions, about 14 or 15 ft. broad, but they were ornamented by winged bulls with human heads, between which stood giants strangling lions. In the example illustrated in the annexed woodcut (No. 67), the arch sprang directly from the backs of the bulls, and was ornamented by an archivolt similar to that over the carriage entrances, and which is perhaps as beautiful a mode of ornamenting an arch as is to be found anywhere.
Other arches have been found in these Assyrian excavations, but none of such extent as these, and none which show more completely how well the Assyrians in the time of Sargon (721 B.C.) understood not only the construction of the arch, but also its use as a decorative architectural feature.[83]
There must always be many points, even in royal residences, which would be more easily understood if we knew the domestic manners and usages prevalent among the common people of the same era and country. This knowledge we actually can supply in the present case, to a great extent, from modern Eastern residences. Such a mode of illustration in the West would be out of the question; but in the East, manners and customs, processes of manufacture and forms of building, have existed unchanged from the earliest times to the present day. This immutability is the greatest charm of the East, and frequently enables us to understand what in our own land would have utterly faded away and been obliterated. In the Yezidi house, for instance, borrowed from Mr. Layard’s work, we see an exact reproduction, in every essential respect, of the style of building in the days of Sennacherib. Here we have the wooden pillars with bracket capitals, supporting a mass of timber intended to be covered with a thickness of earth sufficient to prevent the rain or heat from penetrating to the dwelling. There is no reason to doubt that the houses of the humbler classes were in former times similar to that here represented; and this very form amplified into a palace, and the walls and pillars ornamented and carved, would exactly correspond with the principal features of the palace of the great Assyrian king.
PALACE OF SENNACHERIB, KOYUNJIK.
Having said so much of Khorsabad, it will not be necessary to say much about the palace at Koyunjik, built by Sennacherib, the son of the Khorsabad king.
As the great metropolitan palace of Nineveh, it was of course of far greater extent and far more magnificent than the suburban palace of his father. The mound itself on which it stands is about 1½ mile in circumference (7800 ft.); and, as the whole was raised artificially to the height of not less than 30 ft., it is in itself a work of no mean magnitude.
The principal palace stood at the south-western angle of this mound, and as far as the excavation has been carried seems to have formed a square of about 600 ft. each way—double the lineal dimensions of that at Nimroud. Its general arrangements were very similar to those at Khorsabad, but on a larger scale. It enclosed within itself two or three great internal courts, surrounded with sixty or seventy apartments, some of great extent. The principal façade, facing the east, surpassed any of those of Khorsabad, both in size and magnificence, being adorned by ten winged bulls of the largest dimensions, with a giant between each of the two principal external ones, in the manner shown in the woodcut (No. 62), besides smaller sculptures—the whole extending to a length of not less than 350 ft. The principal façade at Khorsabad, as above mentioned, extended 330 ft., but the bulls and the portals there were to those at Koyunjik in the proportion of 30 to 40, which nearly indeed expresses the relative magnificence of the two palaces. Inside the great portal at Koyunjik was a hall, 180 ft. in length by 42 in width, with a recess at each end, through which access was obtained to two courtyards, one on the right and one on the left; and beyond these to the other and apparently the more private apartments of the palace, which overlooked the country and the river Tigris, flowing to the westward of the palace—the principal entrance, as at Khorsabad, being from the city.[84]
It is impossible, of course, to say how much further the palace extended, though it is probable that nearly all the apartments which were revêted with sculptures have been laid open; but what has been excavated occupies so small a portion of the mound that it is impossible to be unimpressed with the conviction that it forms but a very small fraction of the imperial palace of Nineveh. Judging even from what has as yet been uncovered, it is, of all the buildings of antiquity, alone surpassed in magnitude by the great palace-temple at Karnac; and when we consider the vastness of the mound on which it was raised, and the richness of the ornaments with which it was adorned, a doubt arises whether it was not as great, or at least as expensive, a work as the great palace-temples of Thebes. The latter, however, were built with far higher motives, and designed to last through ages, while the palace at Nineveh was built only to gratify the barbaric pride of a wealthy and sensual monarch, and perished with the ephemeral dynasty to which he belonged.
PALACE OF ESARHADDON.
Another Assyrian palace, of which considerable remains still exist, is that of Esarhaddon, commonly known as the South-west Palace at Nimroud. Like the others, this too has been destroyed by fire, and the only part that remains sufficiently entire to be described is the entrance or southern hall. Its general dimensions are 165 ft. in length by 62 ft. in width, and it consequently is the largest hall yet found in Assyria. The architects, however, either from constructive necessities or for purposes of state, divided it down the centre by a wall supporting dwarf columns,[85] forming a central gallery, to which access was had by bridge galleries at both ends, a mode of arrangement capable of great variety and picturesqueness of effect, and of which there is little doubt that the builders availed themselves to the fullest extent. This led into a courtyard of considerable dimensions, surrounded by apartments, but they are all too much destroyed by fire to be intelligible.
Another great palace, built, as appears from the inscriptions, by a son of Esarhaddon, has been discovered nearly in the centre of the mound at Koyunjik. Its terrace-wall has been explored for nearly 300 ft. in two directions from the angle near which the principal entrance is placed. This is on a level 20 ft. lower than the palace itself, which is reached by an inclined passage nearly 200 ft. in length, adorned with sculpture on both sides. The palace itself, as far as its exploration has been carried, appears similar in its arrangements to those already described; but the sculptures with which it is adorned are more minute and delicate, and show a more perfect imitation of nature, than the earlier examples, though inferior to them in grandeur of conception and breadth of design.
The architectural details also display a degree of elegance and an amount of elaborate finish not usually found in the earlier examples, as is well illustrated by the Woodcut No. 71, representing one of the pavement slabs of the palace. It is of the same design, and similarly ornamented, but the finish is better, and the execution more elaborate, than in any of the more ancient examples we are acquainted with.
Besides these, there were on the mound at Nimroud a central palace built by Tiglath Pileser, and one at the south-eastern angle of the mound, built by a grandson of Esarhaddon; but both are too much ruined for its being feasible to trace either their form or extent. Around the great pyramid, at the north-west angle of the mound, were buildings more resembling temples than any others on it—all the sculptures upon them pointing apparently to devotional purposes, though in form they differed but little from the palaces. At the same time there is certainly nothing in them to indicate that the mound at the base of which they were situated was appropriated to the dead, or to funereal purposes. Between the north-west and south-west palaces there was also raised a terrace higher than the rest, on which were situated some chambers, the use of which it is not easy to determine.
Notwithstanding the impossibility that now exists of making out all the details of the buildings situated on the great mounds of Nimroud and Koyunjik, it is evident that these great groups of buildings must have ranked among the most splendid monuments of antiquity, surrounded as they were by stone-faced terraces, and approached on every side by noble flights of stairs. When all the palaces with their towers and temples were seen gay with colour, and crowded with all the state and splendour of an Eastern monarch, they must have formed a scene of such dazzling magnificence that one can easily comprehend how the inhabitants of the little cities of Greece or Judea were betrayed into such extravagant hyperbole when speaking of the size and splendour of the great cities of Assyria.
The worst feature of all this splendour was its ephemeral character—though perhaps it is owing to this very fact that we now know so much about it—for, like the reed that bends to the storm and recovers its elasticity, while the oak is snapped by its violence, these relics of a past age have retained to some extent their pristine beauty. Had these buildings been constructed like those of the Egyptians, their remains would probably have been applied to other purposes long ago; but having been overwhelmed so early and forgotten, they have been preserved to our day; nor is it difficult to see how this has occurred. The pillars that supported the roof being of wood, probably of cedar, and the beams on the under side of the roof being of the same material, nothing was easier than to set fire to them. The fall of the roofs, which were probably composed, as at the present day, of five or six feet of earth, and which is requisite to keep out heat as well as wet, would alone suffice to bury the building up to the height of the sculptures. The gradual crumbling of the thick walls consequent on their unprotected exposure to the atmosphere would add three or four feet to this: so that it is hardly too much to suppose that green grass might have been growing over the buried palaces of Nineveh before two or three years had elapsed from the time of their destruction and desertion. When once this had taken place, the mounds afforded far too tempting positions not to be speedily occupied by the villages of the natives; and a few centuries of mud-hut building would complete the process of entombment so completely as to protect the hidden remains perfectly for the centuries during which they have lain buried. These have now been recovered to such an extent as enables us to restore their form almost as certainly as we can those of the temples of Greece or Rome, or of any of the great nations of antiquity.
It is by no means improbable that at some future period we may be able to restore much that is now unintelligible, from the representations of buildings on the sculptures, and to complete our account of their style of architecture from illustrations drawn by the Assyrians themselves. One or two of these have already been published. The annexed woodcut, for instance (No. 72), of a bas-relief representing a little fishing-pavilion on the water’s edge, exhibits in a rude manner all the parts of an Assyrian order with its entablature, and the capital only requires to be slightly elongated to make it similar to those found at Persepolis.
Another from the North Palace, Koyunjik, repeats the same arrangement, with pillars which must be considered as early examples of the Corinthian order, and, if we may trust the drawing, it likewise represents an aqueduct with horizontally constructed arches of pointed form.
A third representation (No. 74) from the same palace seems intended to portray a complete palace façade, with its winged bulls in the entrance and its colossal lions on the front. Above these animals, but not apparently meant to be represented as resting on them, are pillars in antis, as in the two previous illustrations.[86] Unfortunately the cornice is broken away, and the whole is more carelessly executed than is usual in these sculptures.
Another curious representation (Woodcut No. 75) is that of a palace of two storeys, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik, showing a range of openings under the roof in both storeys, each opening being divided into three parts by two Ionic columns between square piers, and are probably meant to represent such an arrangement as that shown in Woodcuts Nos. 72 and 73. On the right the upper storey is a correct representation of the panelled style of ornamentation above alluded to as recently discovered at Khorsabad and elsewhere, and which we know from recent discoveries to have been so favourite a mode of decorating walls in that age.
The most remarkable fact, however, that we gather from all these illustrations is, that the favourite arrangement was a group of pillars “distyle in antis,” as it is technically termed, viz., two circular pillars between two square piers. It is frequently found elsewhere in the façade of tombs, but here it seems to have been repeated over and over again to make up a complete design. For a temple such an arrangement would have been inadmissible: for a palace it seems singularly appropriate and elegant.
Further comparisons will no doubt do much to complete the subject; and when the names written over these bas-reliefs are definitively deciphered, we may find that we really possess contemporary representations, if not of Jerusalem, at least of Lachish, of Susa, and other cities familiar to us both from ancient and from modern history.
We have no representation of the dwellings of private individuals so complete as to enable us to understand them, but there are several of royal camps which are interesting. Among the most curious of these are the representations of the tents of the king and his nobles. One of these is shown in Woodcut No. 76, though how it was constructed is by no means clear. It seems to have been open in the centre to the air, but covered at either end by a sort of hood so arranged as to catch the passing breeze, and afford protection from rain at the same time. The annexed woodcut (No. 77), representing the front and one side of the royal horse-tent, gives a good idea of the luxury and elegance that was carried into the detail even of subordinate structures.
TEMPLES AND TOMBS.
Except the Chaldean-formed temples, which have been described in the previous chapter, there are no religious edifices sufficiently complete to enable us to form a distinct idea of what the architectural arrangements of these temples were. As belonging to a Semitic people we should expect them to be few and insignificant.
So little remains of the temple at Khorsabad, that it is difficult to say what its original form may have been; the terrace, however, which supported it is interesting, as it shows almost the only instance of a perfect Assyrian moulding or cornice betraying a similarity to the forms of Egyptian architecture which we do not find elsewhere. The curve, however, is not exactly that of an Egyptian cornice, being continued beyond the vertical tangent; but this may have arisen from the terrace being only six feet in height, which placed the curve below the line of sight, and so required a different treatment from one placed so high above it as is usually the case in Egypt.
The bas-relief on the next page is perhaps the best sculptured representation that exists of what we might fancy an Assyrian temple to have been. The emblem so enshrined is probably the Asheerah, or grove, to the worship of which the Israelites at all times showed such a tendency to relapse, and is one of the most frequent objects of adoration among the Assyrians.
As a Semitic people we should hardly expect to find any tombs among them, and indeed, unless the pyramid at the north-west angle of the Nimroud mound is the tomb of Sardanapalus, mentioned by the Greeks,[87] it is not clear that a single Assyrian sepulchre has yet been discovered. Those that crowd and choke the ruins of Wurka and Mugheyr and other cities of Babylonia are the remains of a Turanian people who always respected their dead, and paid especial attention to the preservation of their bodies. The pyramid at Nimroud seems to have been explored with sufficient care to enable us to affirm that no stairs or inclined plane led to its summit, and without these it certainly was not one of those observatory temples before alluded to. Still, it is so singular to have one monument, and one only, of its class, that it is difficult to form a satisfactory opinion on the subject.
It stands at the north-west angle of the mound, and measures 167 ft. each way; its base, 30 ft. in height, is composed of beautiful stone masonry, ornamented by buttresses and offsets, above which the wall was continued perpendicularly in brickwork. In the centre of the building, and on the level of the base or terrace, a long vaulted gallery or tunnel was discovered, but it contained no clue to the destination of the building.
The whole now rises to a height of about 120 ft. from the plain, and is composed of sun-dried bricks, with courses of kiln-burnt bricks between them, at certain intervals towards the summit, which render it probable that it originally was not a pyramid in the usual sense of the term, but a square tower, rising in three or four storeys, each less than the lower one, as in the traditional temple of Belus at Babylon, or like the summit of the obelisk represented in the woodcut (No. 81), which most probably is a monolithic reproduction of such a sepulchral tower as this, rather than an obelisk like those of Egypt.
Other obelisks have since been discovered, some of which look even more like miniature models of structural buildings than this one does.
Till further information is obtained, it will hardly be possible to say much that is satisfactory with regard to either the tombs, temples, or minor antiquities of the Assyrian people. Their architecture was essentially Palatial—as that of the Greeks was Templar—and to that alone our remarks might almost be confined. Fortunately, however, sculpture was another art to which they were specially addicted, and to their passion for this we owe most of our knowledge of their manners and customs. To this art also we are indebted for our ability to restore many details of their palaces and buildings, which without its aid would have been altogether unintelligible.
Judged by the same rules of criticism which we apply to Classic or Mediæval art, the architecture of the Assyrians must, it is feared, rank very low. But for gorgeous Barbaric splendour of effect it seems difficult to imagine anything that could well have been grander or more imposing than the palaces of Nineveh must have been when entire and filled with the state and magnificence of the monarchs of the Assyrian empire.
IV. PERSIA
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES. Cyrus founds Pasargadæ B.C. 560 Cambyses’ buildings at ditto 525 Darius builds palace at Persepolis 521 Xerxes builds halls at Persepolis and Susa 485 Artaxerxes Longimanus 465 Darius Nothus 424 Artaxerxes Mnemon repairs buildings at Persepolis and Susa 405 Destruction of Persian Empire by Alexander 331
There still remains a third chapter to write before the survey of the architecture of the central region of Asia is complete—before indeed a great deal which has just been assumed can become capable of proof. By a fortunate accident the Persians used stone where the Assyrians used only wood, and consequently many details of their architecture have come down to our day which would otherwise have passed away had the more perishable materials of their predecessors been made use of.
Whatever else the ancient world may owe to the learning of the Egyptians, it seems certain that they were the first to make use of stone as a constructive building material. As before mentioned, the Egyptians used a stone Proto-Doric pillar at least 1000 years before the Greeks or the Etruscans, or any other ancient people we know of, dreamt of such a thing. The Babylonians and Assyrians never seem to have used stone constructively, except as the revêtement of a terrace wall; and it was not till after the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses that we find any Asiatic nations using a pillar of stone in architecture, or doing more than building a wall, or heaping mass on mass of this material without any constructive contrivance. The Indians first learned this art from the Bactrian Greeks, and many civilised Asiatic nations still prefer wood for their palaces and temples, as the Assyrians did, and only use stone as “a heap.” It must have been difficult, however, for any intelligent people to visit the wonderful stone temples of Thebes and Memphis without being struck by their superior magnificence and durability; and we consequently find the Persians on their return, though reproducing their old forms, adopting the new material, which, fortunately for them and for our history, was found in abundance in the neighbourhood of their capitals.
Even, however, on the most cursory inspection, it is easy to see how little the arts of the Assyrians were changed by their successors. The winged lions and bulls that adorn the portals at Persepolis are practically identical with those of Nineveh. The representations of the king on his throne with his attendants are so similar, that but for the locality it would require considerable knowledge to discriminate between Sennacherib and Xerxes. The long procession of tribute bearers—the symbolical animals slain by the king; the whole ornamentation, in fact, is so slightly altered from what existed in Assyria, that we are startled to find how little change in these sculptures the new dynasty had introduced; and if this is the case with them, and their position and arrangement are nearly identical, we may feel very certain that the architecture was also the same.
It appears at first sight to have been otherwise; but on closer examination it appears quite certain that this even is due more to the material employed than to any alteration in form. Something may be due to the fact that the buildings we now find on the platform at Persepolis may have been dedicated to somewhat different purposes than were those of Nineveh; but even this is not quite clear. If the great square courts of the Ninevite palaces were roofed over, as Layard suggested—and as probably was the case—they would exactly represent the square halls of Persepolis. But as all the intermediate buildings of sun-dried brick have been washed off the bare rock by the winter rains of Persia, we can only speculate on what they might have been, without daring to lay too much stress on our convictions.
PASARGADÆ.
In their present state the remains at Pasargadæ are, perhaps, more interesting to the antiquary than to the architect, the palaces on the plain being so ruined that their architectural arrangements cannot be understood or restored.
On the side of a hill overlooking the plain is a platform of masonry (Woodcut No. 82) which originally supported either a temple or fire-altar, but this has now entirely disappeared, and the structure is only remarkable for the beauty of its masonry and the large dimensions of the stones with which it is built. These are drafted (Woodcut No. 83), not only at their joints but often on their faces, with the same flat sinking as is found in all the Jewish works at Jerusalem, and sometimes in Greek buildings of the best age. Thus an ornament of great beauty and elegance is formed out of what would otherwise be merely a plain mass of masonry.
The tomb of Cyrus has already been referred to (p. 164) as a copy in stone of one of the ziggurats or terrace-temples. But it must be borne in mind that the most celebrated example of this form is as often called the tomb, as the temple of Belus;[88] and among a Turanian people the tomb and the temple may be considered as one and the same thing. The tomb is surrounded on three sides[89] by a portico of columns standing 14 feet apart: no stone capitals have been found, but it is probable that the columns carried wooden bracket-capitals to diminish the bearing of the wooden architrave or beam which supported the roof. Beyond the portico there are the traces of a second enclosure 25 feet wide, which, from its width, was probably an open court.
On the plain are the remains of buildings, three of which were palaces, and one the ruin of a tomb. The plan of one of them, called the palace of Cyrus, has been measured and published by M. Texier, MM. Flandin & Coste, and M. Dieulafoy, and although the restoration given by the latter goes somewhat farther than the remains will account for, there are certain features in which they all agree, and which show that it contained at least two porches or porticoes and a great hall of columns not dissimilar from the examples found at Persepolis. The angle piers or responds of two porticoes still exist in situ; on one of them in the upper stone is cut the socket in which the architrave of the portico rested, the form of this socket having a peculiar value, as it shows more clearly than the socket in the respond of the portico of the palace of Darius, that the Persian architrave was composed of two or more beams placed one over the other, and overhanging, as in the tomb of Darius. A second pier has an inscription which enables us to ascribe its erection to Cyrus. A column, 34 feet high, of the great hall still remains, which shows that at all events in this case the central hall rose above the porticoes, deriving its light therefore through clerestory windows. No capitals have been found,[90] and it is possible therefore they were in wood, as we have suggested may have been the case in the portico of the tomb of Cyrus.
To the east of this palace, and distant about 170 yards, are the remains of a second palace with a hall of columns, and measuring 124 by 49 ft., and on the west side of it is the stone jamb of a doorway similar to those at Persepolis, and carved with the well-known bas-relief of Cyrus. The third palace has been excavated by Mr. Weld Blundell, and the foundations of its walls traced, measuring 187 by 131 ft., with a hall of 24 columns.
PERSEPOLIS.
At Nineveh, as we have seen, all the pillars, the roofs, and the constructive parts of the building, which were of wood,[91] have disappeared, and left nothing but the massive walls, which, falling and being heaped the one on the other, have buried themselves and their ornaments till the present day. At Persepolis, on the contrary, the brick walls, being thinner and exposed on the bare surface of the naked rock, have been washed away by the storms and rains of 2000 years, leaving only the skeletons of the buildings. In the rocky country of Persia, however, the architect fortunately used stone; and we have thus at Persepolis, if the expression may be used, all the bones of the building, but without the flesh; and at Nineveh, the flesh, but without the bones that gave it form and substance.
The general appearance of the ruins, as they at present stand, will be seen from the woodcut (No. 87).[92] The principal mass in the foreground on the left is the Propylæa of Xerxes, and behind that and to the right stand the pillars of the Chehil Minar, or Great Hall of Xerxes. Between these are seen in the distance the remains of the smaller halls of Darius and Xerxes.
The most striking features in this view are the staircases that led from the plain to the platform, and from the lower level to that on which the great hall stood. Indeed, among these ruins, nothing is more remarkable than these great flights of steps. The builders of those days were, so far as we know, the only people who really understood the value of this feature. The Egyptians seem wholly to have neglected it, and the Greeks to have cared little about it; but it was not so at Nineveh, where, so far as we can understand from the indistinct traces left, the stairs must have been one of the most important parts of the design. But they were so situated that they were not buried when the buildings were ruined, and consequently have been removed. At Jerusalem, too, we read that when the Queen of Sheba saw “the ascent by which Solomon went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.” Indeed, in all the ancient temples and palaces of this district, more attention is paid to this feature than to almost any other; and from their favourable situation on artificial terraces, the builders were enabled to apply their stairs with far more effect than any others in ancient or in modern times.
The lower or great staircase at Persepolis is plain, and without any sculpture, but is built of the most massive Cyclopean masonry, and of great width and very easy acclivity. That in front of the great hall is ornamented with sculpture, in three tiers, representing the people of the land bringing presents and the subject nations tribute, to lay at the feet of the monarch, combined with mythological representations; the whole bearing a very considerable resemblance to the sculptures on the walls of the Assyrian palaces, though the position is different. The arrangement of these stairs, too, is peculiar, none of them being at right angles to the buildings they approach, but all being double, apparently to permit of processions passing the throne, situated in the porches at their summit, without interruption, and without altering the line of march.
One of these flights, leading to the platform of Xerxes’ palace, is shown in the woodcut (No. 88). In arrangement it is like the stairs leading to the great terrace, but very much smaller, and is profusely adorned with sculpture.
The principal apartment in all the buildings situated on the platform is a central square hall, the floor of which is studded with pillars placed equidistant the one from the other. The smallest have 4 pillars, the next 16, then 36, and one has 100 pillars on its floor; but to avoid inventing new names, we may call these respectively, distyle, tetrastyle, hexastyle, and decastyle halls, from their having 2, 4, 6, or 10 pillars on each face of the phalanx, and because that is the number of the pillars in their porticoes when they have any.
The building at the head of the great stairs is a distyle hall, having 4 pillars supporting its roof. On each side of the first public entrance stands a human-headed winged bull, so nearly identical with those found in Assyrian palaces as to leave no doubt of their having the same origin. At the opposite entrance are two bulls without wings, but drawn with the same bold, massive proportions which distinguish all the sculptured animals in the palaces of Assyria and Persia. The other, or palace entrance, is destroyed, the foundation only remaining; but this, with the foundations of the walls, leaves no room to doubt that the annexed woodcut (No. 89) is a true representation of its ground-plan.[93] Nor can it be doubted that this is one of those buildings so frequently mentioned in the Bible as a “gate,” not the door of a city or buildings, but a gate of justice, such as that where Mordecai sat at Susa—where Abraham bought his field—where Ruth’s marriage was judged of—and, indeed, where public business was generally transacted.
There are three other distyle halls or gates on the platform: one to the westward of this, very much ruined; one in the centre of the whole group, which seems to have had external porticoes; and a third on the platform in front of the palace of Xerxes.
There are two tetrastyle halls, one of which, erected by Darius (woodcut No. 90), is the most interesting of the smaller buildings on the terrace. It is the only building that faces the south, and is approached by a flight of steps, represented with the whole façade of the palace as it now stands in the woodcut (No. 91). These steps led to a tetrastyle porch, two ranges in depth, which opened into the central hall with its 16 columns, around which were arranged smaller rooms or cells, either for the occupation of the king, if it was a palace, or of the priests if a temple. In the western side a staircase and doorway were added, somewhat unsymmetrically, by Artaxerxes.
These remains would hardly suffice to enable us to restore the external appearance of the palace; but fortunately the same king who built the palace for his use on this mound, repeated it in the rock as an “eternal dwelling” for himself after death. The tomb known as that of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustam (woodcut No. 92), is an exact reproduction, not only of the architectural features of the palace, but to the same scale, and in every respect so similar, that it seems impossible to doubt but that the one was intended as a literal copy of the other. Assuming it to be so, we learn what kind of cornice rested on the double bull capitals. And what is still more interesting, we obtain a representation of a prayer platform, which we have described elsewhere as a Talar,[94] but the meaning of which we should hardly know but for this representation.
The other tetrastyle hall is similar to this, but plainer and somewhat smaller.
Turning from these to the hexastyle halls, the smallest but most perfect (Woodcut No. 91) is that standing on the southern edge of the upper platform, the inscriptions on which certainly prove it to have been built by Xerxes.
The platform on which it stands is approached by two flights of steps, that on the east being the one represented in the woodcut No. 84,—there are also indications of a tetrastyle hall or gate having existed on its summit,—while that to the west is much simpler. The hall itself had a portico of 12 columns, and on each side a range of smaller apartments, the two principal of which had their roof supported by 4 pillars each.
The building is one of great beauty in itself, but its greatest value is that it enables us to understand the arrangement of the great hall of Xerxes—the Chehil Minar—the most splendid building of which any remains exist in this part of the world. From the annexed plan (Woodcut No. 94) it will be seen that the arrangement of the whole central part is identical with that of the building just described. There can be no possible doubt about this, as the bases of all the 72 columns still exist in situ, as well as the jambs of the two principal doorways, which are shaded darker in the plan. The side and rear walls only are restored from the preceding illustration. The only difference is, that instead of the two distyle halls on either side, this had hexastyle porticoes of 12 pillars each, similar to that in front; the angles between which were in all probability filled up with rooms or buildings, as suggested in the plan.[95]
Two orders of pillars were employed to support the roof of this splendid building; one, represented in Woodcut No. 91, with double bull capitals, like those of the porch of Darius’s palace. They are 67 ft. 4 in. in height from the floor to the back of the bull’s neck, or 64 ft. to the under side of the beam that lay between the bulls. The other order, with the Ionic volutes (woodcut No. 96), was also that employed in the northern portico, and generally in the interior throughout this building, and is nearly identical, as far as the base and shaft are concerned, except in the height of the latter. The capital, however, differs widely, and is 16 ft. 6 in. in height, making an order altogether 9 ft. 7 in. less than that used externally, the difference being made up by brackets of wood, which supported the beams of the roof, internally at least, though externally the double bull capital probably surmounted these Ionic-like scrolls.
There is no reason to doubt that these halls also had platforms or talars like the smaller halls, which would also serve to shelter any opening in the roof, though in the present instance it seems very doubtful if any such openings or skylights existed or were indeed required.
Thus arranged, the section of the buildings would be as shown in the woodcut (No. 97); and presuming this structure to have been sculptured and painted as richly as others of its age and class, which it no doubt was, it must have been not only one of the largest, but one of the most splendid buildings of antiquity. In plan it was a rectangle of about 300 ft. by 350, and consequently covered 105,000 square ft.; it was thus larger than the hypostyle hall at Karnac, or any of the largest temples of Greece or Rome. It is larger, too, than any mediæval cathedral except that of Milan; and although it has neither the stone roof of a cathedral, nor the massiveness of an Egyptian building, still its size and proportions, combined with the lightness of its architecture and the beauty of its decorations, must have made it one of the most beautiful buildings ever erected. Both in design and proportion it far surpassed those of Assyria, and though possessing much of detail or ornament that was almost identical, its arrangement and proportions were so superior in every respect that no similar building in Nineveh can be compared with this, the great architectural creation of the Persian Empire.
There is no octastyle hall at Persepolis, and only one decastyle. In this instance the hall itself measured about 225 ft. each way, and had 100 pillars on its floor; still, it was low in proportion, devoid of lateral porticoes, and consequently by no means so magnificent a building as the great hall of Xerxes. The portico in front was two ranges in depth, and flanked by gigantic bulls; but as the whole height was barely 25 ft., it could not have been a remarkable or pleasing object. The sculptures on the jambs of the doorways are the most interesting part of this building; these represent the king on his throne, and various mythological subjects, on a more extensive scale than those similarly situated in the other buildings of the platform. Indeed, it is probable that in the other palaces these subjects were painted on the internal walls, as was done in those Assyrian halls which were not revêted with slabs. With an appropriateness that cannot be too much praised, sculpture seems always to have been used in parts of the building exposed to atmospheric injury, and, because of the exposure, to have been employed there in preference to painting.
Besides these buildings on the platform there are the remains of several others on the plain, and within the precincts of the town of Istakr is a building still called the Hareem of Jemsheed, and which may in reality have been the residence of the Achæmenian kings. It certainly belongs to their age, and from the irregularity of its form, and its general proportions, looks very much more like a residence, properly so called, than any of the monumental erections on the neighbouring platform of Persepolis.
Looked at from an architectural point of view the principal defect of the interior arrangement, especially of the smaller Persepolitan halls, is that their floor is unnecessarily crowded with pillars. As these had to support only a wooden roof, some might have been dispensed with, or a more artistic arrangement have been adopted. This would no doubt have been done but for the influence of the Assyrian style, in which frequent pillars were indispensable to support the heavy flat roofs, and as they were of timber a greater number were required than would have been the case if of stone. Those of wood also looked less cumbersome and less in the way than those made of more durable materials.
It is also a defect that the capitals of the pillars retain at Persepolis so much of the form of their wooden prototypes. In wood such capitals as those depicted (Woodcuts No. 96 or No. 98) would not be offensive. In stone they are clumsy; and the Greeks showed their usual discrimination when they cut away all the volutes but one pair and adopted a stone construction for the entablature.
Notwithstanding these defects, there is a grandeur of conception about the Persepolitan halls which entitles them to our admiration. Their greatest point of interest to the architectural student consists probably in their being examples of a transition from a wooden to a stone style of art, and in their enabling us to complete and understand that art which had been elaborated in the valley of the Euphrates during previous centuries; but which, owing to the perishable nature of the materials employed, has almost wholly passed away, without leaving sufficient traces to enable all its characteristics to be understood or restored.
SUSA.
The explorations of Mr. Loftus at Susa in 1850 laid bare the foundations of a palace almost identical both in plan and dimensions with the Chehil Minar at Persepolis. It was, however, much more completely ruined, the place having long been used as a quarry by the inhabitants of the neighbouring plains, so that now only the bases of the pillars remain in situ, with fragments of the shafts and capitals strewed everywhere about, but no walls or doorways, or other architectural members to enable us to supply what is wanting at Persepolis.
The bases seem to be of the same form and style as those at Persepolis, but rather more richly carved. The capitals are also more elaborate, but more essentially wooden in their form, and betray their origin not only in the exuberance of their carving but also in the disproportion of the capital to the shaft. In wood so large a capital does not look disproportioned to so slender a shaft; in stone the effect is most disagreeable, and was to a certain extent remedied at Persepolis so soon as the result was perceived. Whether the Persians would ever have been able to shake off entirely the wooden original is not quite clear, but the Greeks, being bound by no such association, cut the knot at once, and saved them the trouble.
In 1885, M. Marcel Dieulafoy turned his attention to the excavations as left by Loftus, and conceiving the idea that the principal entrance should be sought for on the south side of the palace, he cut his trenches in a north-east direction and discovered the traces of the walls enclosing the court in front of the palace. These walls were faced with enamelled beton blocks. Portions of these enamels had disappeared, but sufficient remained, as the walls had fallen on their faces, to allow of their being placed in their relative positions. From these fragments M. Dieulafoy was able to put together a frieze of lions not dissimilar to those found in the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, with decorative borders above and below, the whole crowned by a battlement, also in enamelled colours. The lower portion of the wall was covered with unglazed bricks of two colours, red and white, arranged in diaper patterns. Continuing the trench, M. Dieulafoy discovered the great staircase placed at the south side of the tumulus, a staircase of even greater dimensions than the well-known example of Persepolis. Mr. Loftus’s researches had already proved that the palace consisted of a central hall of thirty-six columns, with three porticoes of twelve columns, similar, therefore, to the great hall of Xerxes. M. Dieulafoy’s discoveries have shown that the central hall was enclosed with a wall, thus confirming the late Mr. Fergusson’s theory as to the restoration of the palace of Xerxes (see p. 206). On the east side leading to the royal entrance of the great hall, M. Dieulafoy discovered the remains of the great frieze of archers (Woodcut No. 99), now in the Louvre; these were executed in bright enamelled colours on beton bricks. The figures, which are about 5 ft. in height, are modelled in low relief, arrayed in processional order, each man grasping a lance in his hand and carrying, slung on his shoulder, a bow and quiver full of arrows. The shape of each man’s dress is the same, but the colours and patterns alternate; in one case the dress is studded with rosettes, in the other with squares containing the earliest heraldic device known, a representation of three towers on a hill.
These enamels, as also those of the lions and of fragments of the crenelated staircase, are now all in the Louvre, and retain sufficient of their pristine effect to suggest a scheme of colour and of decorative treatment of the greatest beauty.[96] The inscriptions round the bases of the pillars had already informed us that the hall was erected by Darius and Xerxes, but repaired and restored by Artaxerxes Mnemon, who added the inscriptions. This has been confirmed by another inscription under the lions on the pylons; these M. Dieulafoy attributes to Xerxes, as fragments of enamelled bricks of burnt clay, and not beton, and therefore of an earlier building, have been utilised as a filling-in. In all probability the hall of this palace is the identical hall in which the scenes described in the Book of Esther took place. The foundations of other parts of this palace might be no doubt laid bare by further excavations; but the ruin of the place has been so complete, that little of interest in an architectural point of view can be looked for. Below these Persian ruins are probably buried the remains of long-preceding dynasties, which deeper excavations would lay bare, and which would in all probability afford a rich harvest to the historical explorer.
FIRE TEMPLES.
Near the town of Istakr, and opposite the tombs of Naksh-i-Rustam, stands a small tower-like building, represented in Woodcut No. 100. The lower part is solid; the upper contains a small square apartment, roofed by two great flat slabs of stone. Access to this chamber is obtained by a doorway situated at some distance from the ground.
Both the traditions of the place and the knowledge we have of their religious practices point to this as one of the fire temples of the ancient Persians. Its roof is internally still black, probably with the smoke of ancient fires, and though simple and insignificant as an architectural monument, it is interesting as the only form of a temple apart from regal state which the ancient Persians possessed.
Another, almost identical in form, is found at Pasargadæ,[97] and a third exists (according to Stolze) near Maubandajan, at the foot of the Kuh Pir-i-mard, eleven miles to east of Fasa. Perrot suggests it may have been the tomb of Hytaspes, father of Darius. The celebrated Kaabah at Mecca, to which all the Moslem world now bow in prayer, is probably a fourth, while the temple represented in Woodcut No. 81, from Lord Aberdeen’s Black Stone, may be a representation of such a structure as these, with its curtains and paraphernalia complete. It is too evident, however, that the Persians were not a temple-building people,[98] and the examples that have come down to our time are too few and too insignificant on which to found any theory.
TOMBS.
Little requires to be said of the tombs of the Persians; that of Darius is represented in plan and elevation in Woodcut No. 92, and, as before remarked, it is a literal copy on the rock of the façade of his palace. Internally, three small cells contained the remains of the king, with those of the persons, probably his favourite wife or wives for whom he had destined that honour. Close by this, at Naksh-i-Rustam, are four others, and in the rock behind Persepolis are three more tombs of the Achæmenian kings, identical with these in all essential respects; but still with such a difference in workmanship and detail as would enable a careful architectural student easily to detect a sequence, and so affix to each, approximately at least, the name of the king whose sepulchre it is. Unfortunately, that of Darius only is inscribed; but his position in the dynasty is so well known, that, starting from that point, it would be easy to assign each of these tombs to the king who excavated it for his own resting-place.
Although these tombs of the Achæmenians are not remarkable for their magnificence, they are interesting in an architectural point of view, inasmuch as—as pointed out above—they enable us to restore their structural buildings in a manner we would hardly be able to do without their assistance. They are also interesting ethnographically as indicating that these kings of Persia were far from being the pure Aryans the language of their inscriptions would lead us to suspect they might be. There are not, so far as is yet known, any series of rock-cut sepulchres belonging to any dynasty of pure Aryan blood. Nor would any king of Semitic race attempt anything of the sort. Their evidence, therefore, as far as it goes—and it is tolerably distinct—seems to prove that the Achæmenian kings were of Turanian race. They only, and not any of their subjects in Persia, seem to have adopted this style of grandeur, which, as we shall presently see, was common in Asia Minor, and other countries subject to their sway, but who were of a different race altogether.
V. INVENTION OF THE ARCH
Before leaving this early section of architecture, it may be as well briefly to refer to the invention of the true arch, regarding which considerable misconception still exists.
It is generally supposed that the Egyptians were ignorant of the true principles of the arch, and only employed two stones meeting one another at a certain angle in the centre when they wished to cover a larger space than could conveniently be done by a single block. This, however, seems to be a mistake, as many of the tombs and chambers around the pyramids and the temples at Thebes are roofed by stone and brick arches of a semicircular form, and perfect in every respect as far as the principles of the arch are concerned.
Several of these have been drawn by Lepsius, and are engraved in his work; but, as no text accompanies them, and the drawings are not on a sufficient scale to make out the hieroglyphics, where any exist, their date cannot now be ascertained. Consequently, these examples cannot yet be used as the foundation of any argument on the subject, though the curved form of the roofs in the Third Pyramid would alone be sufficient to render it more than probable that during the period of the 4th dynasty the Egyptians were familiar with this expedient.[99]
At Beni-Hasan, during the time of the 12th dynasty, curvilinear forms reappear in the roofs (Woodcut No. 16), used in such a manner as to render it almost certain that they are copied from roofs of arcuate construction. Behind the Rameseum at Thebes there are a series of arches in brick, which seem undoubtedly to belong to the same age as the building itself; and Sir G. Wilkinson mentions a tomb at Thebes, the roof of which is vaulted with bricks, and still bears the name of Amenoph I., of the 18th dynasty.[100]
The temple at Abydus, erected by Rameses II., shows the same peculiarity as the tombs at Beni-Hasan, of a flat segmental arch thrown across between the stone architraves. In this instance it is also a copy in stone, but such as must have been originally copied from one of brick construction. There is also every reason to believe that the apartments of the little pavilion at Medeenet Habû (Woodcuts Nos. 32 and 33) were covered with semicircular vaults, though these have now disappeared.[101]
In Ethiopia Mr. Hoskins found stone arches vaulting the roofs of the porches to the pyramids, perfect in construction, and, what is still more singular, showing both circular and pointed forms (Woodcut No. 105). These, as before remarked, are probably of the time of Tirhakah, or at all events not earlier than the age of Solomon, nor later than that of Cambyses.
In the age of Psammeticus we have several stone arches in the neighbourhood of the pyramids; one, in a tomb at Sakkara, has been frequently drawn; but one of the most instructive is that in a tomb discovered by Colonel Campbell (Woodcut No. 101), showing a very primitive form of an arch composed of 3 stones only, and above which is another arch of regular construction of 4 courses. In his researches at Nimroud, Layard discovered vaulted drains and chambers below the north-west and south-east edifices, which were consequently as old as the 8th or 9th century before our era, and contemporary with those in the pyramids of Meroë. They were of both circular and pointed forms, and built apparently with great care and attention to the principles of the arch (Woodcut No. 102).
The great discovery of this class is that of the city gates at Khorsabad, which, as mentioned at p. 181, were spanned by arches of semicircular form, so perfect both in construction and in the mode in which they were ornamented, as to prove that in the time of Sargon the arch was a usual and well-understood building expedient, and one consequently which we may fairly assume to have been long in use.
On the other hand, we have in the temple at Dêr-el-Bahree in Thebes, built by Thothmes III., a curious example of the retention of the old form, when at first sight it would appear as though the true arch would have been a more correct expedient. In this example, the lower arch is composed of stones bracketing forward horizontally, though the form of the arch is semicircular; and above this is a discharging arch of two stones used as in the Pyramids. The upper arch is so arranged as to relieve the crown of the lower—which is its weakest part—of all weight, and at the same time to throw the whole pressure on the outer ends of the arch stones, exactly where it is wanted. The whole thus becomes constructively perfect, though it is a more expensive way of attaining the end desired than by an arch.
The truth seems to be, the Egyptians had not at this age invented voussoirs deeper in the direction of the radii of the arch than in that of its perimeter; and the arch with them was consequently not generally an appropriate mode of roofing. It was the Romans with their tiles who first really understood the true employment of the arch.
So far as we can now understand from the discoveries that have been made, it seems that the Assyrians used the pointed arch for tunnels, aqueducts, and generally for underground work where they feared great superincumbent pressure on the apex, and the round arch above-ground where that was not to be dreaded; and in this they probably showed more science and discrimination than we do in such works.
In Europe the oldest arch is probably that of Cloaca Maxima at Rome, constructed under the early kings. It is of stone in 3 rims, and shows as perfect a knowledge of the principle as any subsequent example. Its lasting uninjured to the present day proves how well the art was then understood, and, by inference, how long it must have been practised before reaching that degree of perfection.
From all this it becomes almost certain that the arch was used as early as the times of the pyramid-builders of the 4th dynasty, and was copied in the tombs of Beni-Hasan in the 12th; though it may be that the earliest existing example cannot be dated further back than the first kings of the 18th dynasty; from that time, however, there can be no doubt that it was currently used, not only in Egypt, but also in Ethiopia and Assyria.
It would, indeed, be more difficult to account for the fact of such perfect builders as the Egyptians being ignorant of the arch if such were the case; though, at the same time, it is easy to understand why they should use it so sparingly, as they did in their monumental erections.
Even in the simplest arch, that formed of only two stones, such as is frequently found in the pyramids, and over the highest chamber (Woodcut No. 8), it will be evident that any weight placed on the apex has a tendency to lower the summit, and press the lower ends of the stones outwards. Where there was the whole mass of the pyramid to abut against, this was of no consequence, but in a slighter building it would have thrust the walls apart, and brought on inevitable ruin.
The introduction of a third stone, as in the arch (Woodcut No. 101), hardly remedied this at all, the central stone acting like a wedge to thrust the two others apart; and even the introduction of 2 more stones, making 5, as in Woodcut No. 105, only distributed the pressure without remedying the defect; and without the most perfect masonry every additional joint was only an additional source of weakness.
This has been felt by the architects of all ages and in all countries: still, the advantage of being able to cover large spaces with small stones or bricks is so great, that many have been willing to run the risk; and all the ingenuity of the Gothic architects of the Middle Ages was applied to overcoming the difficulty. But even the best of their buildings are unstable from this cause, and require constant care and attention to keep them from falling.
The Indian architects have fallen into the other extreme, refusing to use the arch under any circumstances, and preferring the smallest dimensions and the most crowded interiors, to adopting what they consider so destructive an expedient. As mentioned in the Introduction (page 22), their theory is that “an arch never sleeps,” and is constantly tending to tear a building to pieces: and, where aided by earthquakes and the roots of trees, there is only too much truth in their belief.
The Egyptians seem to have followed a middle course, using arches either in tombs, where the rock formed an immovable abutment; or in pyramids and buildings, where the mass immensely overpowered the thrust; or underground, where the superincumbent earth prevented movement.
They seem also to have used flat segmental arches of brickwork between the rows of massive architraves which they placed on their pillars; and as all these abutted one another, like the arches of a bridge, except the external ones, which were sufficiently supported by the massive walls, the mode of construction was a sound one. This is exactly that which we have re-introduced during the last 30 years, in consequence of the application of cast-iron beams, between which flat segmental arches of brick are thrown, when we desire to introduce a more solid and fire-proof construction than is possible with wood only.
In their use of the arch, as in everything else, the building science of the Egyptians seems to have been governed by the soundest principles and the most perfect knowledge of what was judicious and expedient, and what should be avoided. Many of their smaller edifices have no doubt perished from the scarcity of wood forcing the builders to employ brick arches, but they wisely avoided the use of these in all their larger monuments—in all, in fact, which they wished should endure to the latest posterity.
VI. JUDEA
CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA CONNECTED WITH ARCHITECTURE.
DATES. Moses B.C. 1312 Solomon 1013 Ezekiel 573 Zerubbabel 520 Herod 20 Titus A.D. 70
The Jews, like the other Semitic races, were not a building people, and never aspired to monumental magnificence as a mode of perpetuating the memory of their greatness. The palace of Solomon was wholly of cedar wood, and must have perished of natural decay in a few centuries, if it escaped fire and other accidents incident to such temporary structures. Their first temple was a tent, their second depended almost entirely on its metallic ornaments for its splendour, and it was not till the Greeks and Romans taught them how to apply stone and stone carving for this purpose that we have anything that can be called architecture in the true sense of the term.
This deficiency of monuments is, however, by no means peculiar to the Jewish people. As before observed, we should know hardly anything of the architecture of Assyria but for the existence of the wainscot slabs of their palaces, though they were nearly a purely Semitic people, but their art rested on a Turanian basis. Neither Tyre nor Sidon have left us a single monument; nor Utica nor Carthage one vestige that dates anterior to the Roman period. What is found at Jerusalem, at Baalbec, at Palmyra, or Petra, even in the countries beyond the Jordan, is all Roman. What little traces of Phœnician art are picked up in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean are copies, with Egyptian or Grecian details, badly and unintelligently copied, and showing a want of appreciation of the first principles of art that is remarkable in that age. It is therefore an immense gain if by our knowledge of Assyrian art we are enabled, even in a moderate degree, to realise the form of buildings which have long ceased to exist, and are only known to us from verbal descriptions.
The most celebrated secular building of the Jews was the palace which Solomon was occupied in building during the thirteen years which followed his completion of the Temple. As not one vestige of this celebrated building remains, and even its site is a matter of dispute, the annexed plan must be taken only as an attempt to apply the knowledge we have acquired in Assyria and Judea to the elucidation of the descriptions of the Bible and Josephus,[102] and as such may be considered of sufficient interest to deserve a place in the History of Architecture.
The principal apartment here, as in all Eastern palaces, was the great audience hall, in this instance 150 feet in length by 75 in width; the roof composed of cedar, and, like the Ninevite palaces, supported by rows of cedar pillars on the floor. According to Josephus, who, however, never saw it, and had evidently the Roman Stoa Basilica of the Temple in his eye, the section would probably have been as shown in diagram A. But the contemporary Bible narrative, which is the real authority, would almost certainly point to something more like the Diagram B in the annexed woodcut.
Next in importance to this was the Porch, which was the audience or reception hall, attached to the private apartments; these two being the Dewanni Aum and Dewanni Khas of Eastern palaces, at this day. The Hall of Judgment we may venture to restore with confidence, from what we find at Persepolis and Khorsabad; and the courts are arranged in the diagram as they were found in Ninevite palaces. They are proportioned, so far as we can now judge, to those parts of which the dimensions are given by the authorities, and to the best estimate we can now make of what would be most suitable to Solomon’s state, and to such a capital as Jerusalem was at that time.
From Josephus we learn that Solomon built the walls of this palace “with stones 10 cubits in length, and wainscoted them with stones that were sawed and were of great value, such as are dug out of the earth for the ornaments of temples and the adornment of palaces.”[103] These were ornamented with sculptures in three rows, but the fourth or upper row was the most remarkable, being covered with foliage in relief, of the most exquisite workmanship; above this the walls were plastered and ornamented with paintings in colour: all of which is the exact counterpart of what we find at Nineveh.
From the knowledge we now possess of Assyrian palaces it might indeed be possible to restore this building with fairly approximate correctness, but it would hardly be worth while to attempt this except in a work especially devoted to Jewish art. For the present it must suffice to know that the affinities of the architecture of Solomon’s age were certainly Assyrian; and from our knowledge of the one we may pretty accurately realise the form of the other.
TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM.
Although not one stone remains upon another of the celebrated Temple of Jerusalem, still, the descriptions in the Bible and Josephus are so precise, that now that we are able to interpret them by the light of other buildings, its history can be written with very tolerable certainty.
The earliest temple of the Jews was the Tabernacle, the plan of which they always considered as divinely revealed to them through Moses in the desert of Sinai, and from which they consequently never departed in any subsequent erections. Its dimensions were for the cella, or Holy of Holies, 10 cubits or 15 ft. cube; for the outer temple, two such cubes or 15 ft. by 30. These were covered by the sloping roofs of the tent, which extended 5 cubits in every direction beyond the temple itself, making the whole 40 cubits or 60 ft. in length by 20 cubits or 30 ft. in width. These stood within an enclosure 100 cubits long by 50 cubits wide.[104]
When Solomon (B.C. 1015) built the Temple, he did not alter the disposition in any manner, but adopted it literally, only doubling every dimension. Thus the Holy of Holies became a cube of 20 cubits; the Holy place, 20 by 40; the porch and the chambers which surrounded it 10 cubits each, making a total of 80 cubits or 120 ft. by 40 cubits or 60 ft., with a height of 30 as compared with 15, which was the height of the ridge of the Tabernacle, and it was surrounded by a court the dimensions of which were 200 cubits in length by 100 in width.
Even with these increased dimensions the Temple was a very insignificant building in size: the truth being that, like the temples of Semitic nations, it was more in the character of a shrine or of a treasury intended to contain certain precious works in metal.
The principal ornaments of its façade were two brazen pillars, Jachin and Boaz, which seem to have been wonders of metal work, and regarding which more has been written, and it may be added, more nonsense, than regarding almost any other known architectural objects. The truth of the matter appears to be that the translators of our Bibles in no instance were architects, and none of the architects who have attempted the restoration were learned as Hebrew scholars; and consequently the truth has fallen to the ground between the two. A brazen pillar, however, 18 cubits high and 12 cubits in circumference—6 ft. in diameter—is an absurdity that no brass-founder ever could have perpetrated. In the Hebrew, the 15th verse reads: “He cast two pillars of brass, 18 cubits was the height of the one pillar, and a line of 12 cubits encompassed the other pillar.”[105] The truth of the matter seems to be that what Solomon erected was a screen (chapiter) consisting of two parts, one 4 cubits, the other 5 cubits in height, and supported by two pillars of metal, certainly not more than 1 cubit in diameter, and standing 12 cubits apart: nor does it seem difficult to perceive what purpose this screen was designed to effect. As will be observed, in the restoration of the Tabernacle (Woodcut No. 109), the whole of the light to the interior is admitted from the front. In the Temple the only light that could penetrate to the Holy of Holies was from the front also; and though the Holy place was partially lighted from the sides, its principal source of light must have been through the eastern façade. In consequence of this there must have been a large opening or window in this front, and as a window was a thing that they had not yet learned to make an ornamental feature in architectural design, they took this mode of screening and partially, at least, hiding it.
It becomes almost absolutely certain that this is the true solution of the riddle, when we find that when Herod rebuilt the Temple in the first century B.C., he erected a similar screen for the same purpose in front of his Temple. Its dimensions, however, were one-third larger. It was 40 cubits high, and 20 cubits across, and it supported five beams instead of two;[106] not to display the chequer-work and pomegranates of Solomon’s screen, but to carry the Golden Vine, which was the principal ornament of the façade of the Temple in its latest form.[107]
Although it is easy to understand how it was quite possible in metal work to introduce all the ornaments enumerated in the Bible, and with gilding and colour to make these objects of wonder, we have no examples with which we can compare them, and any restoration must consequently be somewhat fanciful. Still, we must recollect that this was the “bronze age” of architecture. Homer tells us of the brazen house of Priam, and the brazen palace of Alcinous; the Treasuries at Mycenæ were covered internally with bronze plates; and in Etruscan tombs of this age metal was far more essentially the material of decoration than carving in stone, or any of the modes afterwards so frequently adopted. The altar of the Temple was of brass. The molten sea, supported by twelve brazen oxen; the bases, the lavers, and all the other objects in metal work, were in reality what made the Temple so celebrated; and very little was due to the mere masonry by which we should judge of a Christian church or any modern building.
No pillars are mentioned as supporting the roof, but every analogy derived from Persian architecture, as well as the constructive necessities of the case, would lead us to suppose they must have existed, four in the sanctuary and eight in the pronaos.
The temple which Ezekiel saw in a vision on the banks of the Chebar was identical in dimensions with that of Solomon, in so far as naos and pronaos were concerned. But a passage round the naos was introduced, giving access to the chambers, which added 10 cubits to its dimensions every way, making it 100 cubits by 60. The principal court, which contained the Altar and the Temple properly so called, had the same dimensions as in Solomon’s Temple; but he added, in imagination at least, four courts, each 100 cubits or 150 ft. square. That on the east certainly existed, and seems to have been the new court of Solomon’s Temple,[108] and is what in that of Herod became the court of the Gentiles. The north and south courts were never apparently carried out. They did not exist in Solomon’s Temple, and there is evidence to show that they were not found in Zerubbabel’s.[109] That on the north-west angle was the citadel of the Temple, where the treasures were kept, and which was afterwards replaced by the Tower Antonia.
When the Jews returned from the Captivity they rebuilt the Temple exactly as it had been described by Ezekiel, in so far as dimensions are concerned, except that, as just mentioned, they do not seem to have been able to accomplish the northern and southern courts.
The materials, however, were probably inferior to the original Temple; and we hear nothing of brazen pillars in the porch, nor of the splendid vessels and furniture which made the glory of Solomon’s Temple, so that the Jews were probably justified in mourning over its comparative insignificance.[110]
In the last Temple we have a perfect illustration of the mode in which the architectural enterprises of that country were carried out. The priests restored the Temple itself, not venturing to alter a single one of its sacred dimensions, only adding wings to the façade so as to make it 100 cubits wide, and it is said 100 cubits high, while the length remained 100 cubits as before.[111] At this period, however, Judea was under the sway of the Romans and under the influence of their ideas, and the outer courts were added with a magnificence of which former builders had no conception, but bore strongly the impress of the architectural magnificence of the Romans.
An area measuring 600 feet each way was enclosed by terraced walls of the utmost lithic grandeur. On these were erected porticoes unsurpassed by any we know of. One, the Stoa Basilica, had a section equal to that of our largest cathedrals, and surpassed them all in length, and within this colonnaded enclosure were ten great gateways, two of which were of surpassing magnificence: the whole making up a rich and varied pile worthy of the Roman love of architectural display, but in singular contrast with the modest aspirations of a purely Semitic people.
It is always extremely difficult to restore any building from mere verbal description, and still more so when erected by a people of whose architecture we know so little as we do of that of the Jews. Still, the woodcut on the opposite page is probably not very far from representing the Temple as it was after the last restoration by Herod, barring of course the screen bearing the Vine mentioned above, which is omitted. Without attempting to justify every detail, it seems such a mixture of Roman with Phœnician forms as might be expected and is warranted by Josephus’s description. There is no feature for which authority could not be quoted, but the difficulty is to know whether or not the example adduced is the right one, or the one which bears most directly on the subject. After all, perhaps, its principal defect is that it does not (how can a modern restoration?) do justice to the grandeur and beauty of the whole.
As it has been necessary to anticipate the chronological sequence of events in order not to separate the temples of the Jews from one another, it may be as well before proceeding further to allude to several temples similarly situated which apparently were originally Semitic shrines but rebuilt in Roman times. That at Palmyra, for instance, is a building very closely resembling that at Jerusalem, in so far at least as the outer enclosure is concerned.[112] It consists of a cloistered enclosure of somewhat larger dimensions, measuring externally 730 ft. by 715, with a small temple of an anomalous form in the centre. It wants, however, all the inner enclosures and curious substructures of the Jewish fane; but this may have arisen from its having been rebuilt in late Roman times, and consequently shorn of these peculiarities. It is so similar, however, that it must be regarded as a cognate temple to that at Jerusalem, though re-erected by a people of another race.
A third temple, apparently very similar to these, is that of Kangovar in Persia.[113] Only a portion now remains of the great court in which it stood, and which was nearly of the same dimensions as those of Jerusalem and Palmyra, being 660 ft. by 568. In the centre are the vestiges of a small temple. At Aizaini in Asia Minor[114] is a fourth, with a similar court; but here the temple is more important, and assumes more distinctly the forms of a regular Roman peristylar temple of the usual form, though still small and insignificant for so considerable an enclosure.
The mosque of Damascus was once one of these great square temple-enclosures, with a small temple, properly so called, in the centre. It may have been as magnificent, perhaps more so, than any of these just enumerated, but it has been so altered by Christian and Moslem rebuildings, that it is almost impossible now to make out what its original form may have been.
None of these are original buildings, but still, when put together and compared the one with the other, and, above all, when examined by the light which discoveries farther east have enabled us to throw on the subject, they enable us to restore this style in something like its pristine form. At present, it is true, they are but the scattered fragments of an art of which it is feared no original specimens now remain, and which can only therefore be recovered by induction from similar cognate examples of other, though allied, styles of art.
VII. ASIA MINOR
CONTENTS.
Historical notice—Tombs at Smyrna—Doganlu—Lycian tombs.
It is now perhaps in vain to expect that any monuments of the most ancient times, of great extent or of great architectural importance, remain to be discovered in Asia Minor; still, it is a storehouse from which much information may yet be gleaned, and whence we may expect the solution of many dark historical problems, if ever they are to be solved at all.
Situated as that country is, in the very centre of the old world, surrounded on three sides by navigable seas opening all the regions of the world to her commerce, possessing splendid harbours, a rich soil, and the finest climate of the whole earth, it must not only have been inhabited at the earliest period of history, but must have risen to a pitch of civilisation at a time preceding any written histories that we possess. We may recollect that, in the time of Psammeticus, Phrygia contended with Egypt for the palm of antiquity, and from the monuments of the 18th dynasty we know what rich spoil, what beautiful vases of gold, and other tributes of a rich and luxurious people, the Pout and Roteno and other inhabitants of Asia Minor brought and laid at the feet of Thothmes and other early kings eighteen centuries at least before the Christian era.
At a later period (716 to 547 B.C.) the Lydian empire was one of the richest and most powerful in Asia; and contemporary with this and for a long period subsequent to it, the Ionian colonies of Greece surpassed the mother country in wealth and refinement, and almost rivalled her in literature and art. Few cities of the ancient world surpassed Ephesus, Sardis, or Halicarnassus in splendour; and Troy, Tarsus, and Trebisond mark three great epochs in the history of Asia Minor which are unsurpassed in interest and political importance by the retrospect of any cities of the world. Excepting, however, the remains of the Greek and Roman periods—the great temples of the first, and the great theatres of the latter period—little that is architectural remains in this once favoured land. It happens also unfortunately that there was no great capital city—no central point—where we can look for monuments of importance. The defect in the physical geography of the country is that it has no great river running through it—no vast central plain capable of supporting a population sufficiently great to overpower the rest and to give unity to the whole.
So far as our researches yet reach, it would seem that the oldest remains still found in Asia Minor are the tumuli of Tantalais, on the northern shore of the Gulf of Smyrna. They seem as if left there most opportunely to authenticate the tradition of the Etruscans having sailed from this port for Italy. One of these is represented in Woodcuts Nos. 113 and 114. Though these tumuli are built wholly of stone, no one familiar with architectural resemblances can fail to see in them a common origin with those of Etruria. The stylobate, the sloping sides, the inner chamber, with its pointed roof, all the arrangements, indeed, are the same, and the whole character of the necropolis at Tantalais would be as appropriate at Tarquinii or Cæræ as at Smyrna.
Another tumulus of equal interest historically is that of Alyattes, near Sardis, described with such care by Herodotus,[115] and which was explored 35 years ago by Spiegelthal, the Prussian consul at Smyrna.[116] According to the measurements of Herodotus, it was either 3800 or 4100 ft. in circumference; at present it is found to be 1180 ft. in diameter, and consequently about 3700 ft. in circumference at the top of the basement, though of course considerably more below. It is situated on the edge of a rocky ridge, which is made level on one side by a terrace-wall of large stones, 60 ft. in height; above this the mound rises to the height of 142 ft.: the total height above the plain being 228 ft. The upper part of the mound is composed of alternate layers of clay, loam, and a kind of rubble concrete. These support a mass of brickwork, surmounted by a platform of masonry; on this one of the steles described by Herodotus still lies, and one of the smaller ones was found close by.
The funereal chamber was discovered resting on the rock at about 160 ft. from the centre of the mound. Its dimensions were 11 ft. by 7 ft. 9 in., and 7 ft. high; the roof flat and composed of large stones, on which rested a layer of charcoal and ashes, 2 ft. in thickness, evidently the remains of the offerings which had been made after the chamber was closed, but before the mound had been raised over it.
There are in the same locality an immense number of tumuli of various dimensions, among which Herr Spiegelthal fancies he can discriminate three classes, belonging to three distinct ages; that of Alyattes belonging to the most modern. This is extremely probable, as at this time (B.C. 561) the fashion of erecting tumuli as monuments was dying out in this part of the world, though it continued in less civilised parts of Europe till long after the Christian era.
The tumuli that still adorn the Plain of Troy are probably contemporary with the oldest of the three groups of those around the Gygean Lake. Indeed, there does not seem much reason for doubting that they were really raised over the ashes of the heroes who took part in that memorable struggle, and whose names they still bear.
The recent explorations of these mounds do not seem to have thrown much light on the subject, but if we can trust the account Chevalier gives of his researches at the end of the last century, the case is clear enough, and there can be very little doubt but that the Dios Tepe on the Sigæan promontory is really the tomb of Achilles.[117] Intensely interesting though they are in other respects, Schliemann’s discoveries on the site of Troy have done very little to increase our knowledge of the architecture of the period. This may partly be owing to his ignorance of the art, and to his having no architect with him, but it does not appear that any architectural mouldings were discovered earlier than those of “Ilium Novum,” two or three centuries before Christ. The so-called Temple of Minerva was without pillars or mouldings of any sort, and the walls and gates of the old city were equally devoid of ornament. What was found seems to confirm the idea that the Trojans were a Turanian-Pelasgic people burying their dead in mounds, and revelling in barbaric splendour, but not having reached that degree of civilisation which would induce them to seek to perpetuate their forms of art in more permanent materials than earth and metals.[118]
It is not clear whether any other great groups of tumuli exist in Asia Minor, but it seems more than probable that in the earliest times the whole of this country was inhabited by a Pelasgic race, who were the first known occupants of Greece, and who built the so-called Treasuries of Mycenæ and Orchomenos, and who sent forth the Etruscans to civilise Italy. If this be so, it accounts for the absence of architectural remains, for they would have left behind them no buildings but the sepulchres of their departed great ones; and if their history is to be recovered, it must be sought for in the bowels of the earth, and not in anything existing above-ground.
Next to these in point of age and style comes a curious group of rock-cut monuments, found in the centre of the land at Doganlu. They are placed on the rocky side of a narrow valley, and are unconnected apparently with any great city or centre of population. Generally they are called tombs, but there are no chambers nor anything about them to indicate a funereal purpose, and the inscriptions which accompany them are not on the monuments themselves, nor do they refer to such a destination. Altogether they are certainly among the most mysterious remains of antiquity, and, beyond a certain similarity to the rock-cut tombs around Persepolis, present no features that afford even a remote analogy to other monuments which might guide us in our conjectures as to the purpose for which they were designed. They are of a style of art clearly indicating a wooden origin, and consist of a square frontispiece, either carved into certain geometric shapes, or apparently prepared for painting; at each side is a flat pilaster, and above a pediment terminating in two scrolls. Some—apparently the more modern—have pillars of a rude Doric order, and all indeed are much more singular than beautiful. When more of the same class are discovered, they may help us to some historic data: all that we can now advance is, that, judging from the inscriptions on them and the traditions in Herodotus, they would appear to belong to some race from Thessaly, or thereabouts, who at some remote period crossed the Hellespont and settled in their neighbourhood; they may be dated as far back as 1000, and most probably 700 years at least before the Christian Era.
There are other rock-cut sculptures farther east, at Pterium and elsewhere; but all these are figure sculptures, without architectural form or details, and therefore hardly coming within the limits of this work.
The only remaining important architectural group in Asia Minor is that of Lycia, made known in this country since the year 1838, by the investigations of Sir Charles Fellows and others. Interesting though they certainly are, they are extremely disheartening to any one looking for earlier remains in this land,—inasmuch as all of them, and more especially the older ones, indicate distinctly a wooden origin—more strongly perhaps than any architectural remains in the Western world. The oldest of them cannot well be carried farther back than the Persian conquest of Cyrus and Harpagus. In other words, it seems perfectly evident that up to that period the Lycians used only wood for their buildings, and that it was only at that time, and probably from the Greeks or Egyptians, that they, like the Persians themselves, first learnt to substitute for their frail and perishable structures others of a more durable material.
As already observed, the same process can be traced in Egypt in the earliest ages. In Central Asia the change was effected by the Persians. In India between the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C. In Greece—in what was not borrowed from the Egyptians—the change took place a little earlier than in Lycia, or say in the 7th century B.C. What is important to observe here is that, wherever the process can be detected, it is in vain to look for earlier buildings. It is only in the infancy of stone architecture that men adhere to wooden forms; and as soon as habit gives them familiarity with the new material they abandon the incongruities of the style, and we lose all trace of the original form, which never reappears at an after age.
All the original buildings of Lycia are tombs or monumental erections of some kind, and generally may be classed under two heads, those having curvilinear and those having rectilinear roofs, of both which classes examples are found structural—or standing alone—as well as rock-cut. The woodcut (No. 117) represents a perfectly constructed tomb. It consists first of a double podium, which may have been in all cases, or at least generally, of stone. Above this is a rectangular chest or sarcophagus, certainly copied from a wooden form; all the mortises and framing, even to the pins that held them together, being literally rendered in the stonework. Above this is a curvilinear roof of pointed form, which also is in all its parts a copy of an original in wood.
The staves or bearers of the lower portion of the chest or sarcophagus would suggest that the original feature was a portable ark, the upper portion of which was framed in bamboo or some pliable wood tied together by cross timbers or purlins which are carved on the principal front. A somewhat similar scheme of construction is shown in the Chaityas of the Buddhist temples, which are supposed to have been copies of wooden structures not dissimilar to the Toda Mant huts which are built by the Hindus down to the present day.[119]
When these forms are repeated in the rock the stylobate is omitted, and only the upper part represented, as shown in the annexed woodcut (No. 118).
When the curvilinear roof is omitted, a flat one is substituted, nearly similar to those common in the country at the present day, consisting of beams of unsquared timber, laid side by side as close as they can be laid, and over this a mass of concrete or clay, sufficiently thick to prevent the rain from penetrating through. Sometimes this is surmounted by a low pediment, and sometimes the lower framing also stands out from the rock, so as to give the entrance of the tomb something of a porchlike form. Both these forms are illustrated in the two woodcuts (Nos. 119 and 120), and numerous varieties of them are shown in the works of Sir Charles Fellows and others, all containing the same elements, and betraying most distinctly the wooden origin from which they were derived.
The last form that these buildings took was in the substitution of an Ionic façade for these carpentry forms: this was not done apparently at once, for, though the Ionic form was evidently borrowed from the neighbouring Greek cities, it was only adopted by degrees, and even then betrayed more strongly the wooden forms from which its entablature was derived than is usually found in other or more purely Grecian examples. As soon as it had fairly gained a footing, the wooden style was abandoned, and a masonry one substituted in its stead. The whole change took place in this country probably within a century; but this is not a fair test of the time such a process usually takes, as here it was evidently done under foreign influence and with the spur given by the example of a stone-building people. We have no knowledge of how long it took in Egypt to effect the transformation. In India, where the form and construction of the older Buddhist temples resemble so singularly these examples in Lycia, the process can be traced through five or six centuries; and in Persia it took perhaps nearly as long to convert the wooden designs of the Assyrians into even the imperfect stone architecture of the Achæmenians. Even in their best and most perfect buildings, however, much remained to be done before the carpentry types were fairly got rid of and the style became entitled to rank among the masonic arts of the world.
The remaining ancient buildings of Asia Minor were all built by the Greeks and Romans, each in their own style, so that their classification and description belong properly to the chapters treating of the architectural history of those nations, from which they cannot properly be separated, although it is at the same time undoubtedly true that the purely European forms of the art were considerably modified by the influence on them of local Asiatic forms and feelings. The Ionic order, for instance, which arose in the Grecian colonies on the coast, is only the native style of this country Doricised, if the expression may be used. In other words, the local method of building had become so modified and altered by the Greeks in adapting it to the Doric, which had become the typical style with them, as to cause the loss of almost all its original Asiatic forms. It thus became essentially a stone architecture with external columns, instead of a style indulging only in wooden pillars, and those used internally, as there is every reason to suppose was the earlier form of the art. The Ionic style, thus composed of two elements, took the arrangement of the temples from the Doric, and their details from the Asiatic original. The Roman temples, on the contrary, which have been erected in this part of the world, in their columns and other details exactly follow the buildings at Rome itself: while, as in the instances above quoted of Jerusalem, Palmyra, Kangovar, and others, the essential forms and arrangements are all local and Asiatic. The former are Greek temples with Asiatic details, the latter Asiatic temples with only Roman masonic forms. The Greeks, in fact, were colonists, the Romans only conquerors; and hence the striking difference in the style of Asiatic art executed under their respective influence. We shall have frequent occasion in the sequel to refer to this difference.
Though not strictly within the geographical limits of this chapter, there is a group of tombs at Amrith—the ancient Marathos, on the coast of Syria—which are too interesting to be passed over; but so exceptional in the present state of our knowledge, that it is difficult to assign them their proper place anywhere.
The principal monument, represented in woodcut No. 122, is 31 ft. 8 in. in height, composed of very large blocks of stone and situated over a sepulchral cavern. There is no inscription or indication to enable us to fix its date with certainty.[120] The details of its architecture might be called Assyrian; but we know of nothing in that country that at all resembles it. On the other hand there is a moulding on its base, which, if correctly drawn, would appear to be of Roman origin; and there is a look about the lions that would lead us to suspect they were carved under Greek influence—after the age of Alexander at least.
The interest consists in its being almost the only perfect survivor of a class of monuments at one time probably very common; but which we are led to believe from the style of ornamentation were generally in brick. It is also suggestive, from its close resemblance to the Buddhist topes in Afghanistan and India; the tall form of those, especially in the first-named country, and their universally domical outline, point unmistakably to some such original as this: and lastly, were I asked to point out the building in the old world which most resembled the stele which Herod erected over the Tombs of the Kings at Jerusalem, in expiation of his desecration of their sanctity,[122] this is the monument to which I should unhesitatingly refer.
I. GREECE
CONTENTS.
Historical notice—Pelasgic art—Tomb of Atreus—Other remains—Hellenic Greece—History of the orders—Doric order—the Parthenon—Ionic order—Corinthian order—Caryatides—Forms of temples—Mode of lighting—Municipal architecture—Theatres.
CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.
DATES.
Atridæ at Mycenæ, from B.C. 1207 to 1104
Return of the Heraclidæ to Peloponnese 1104
Olympiads commence 776
Cypselidæ at Corinth—Building of temple at 655 to 581 Corinth, from
Selinus founded, and first temple commenced 626
Ascendency of Ægina—Building of temple at Ægina, 508 to 499 from
Battle of Marathon 490
Battle of Salamis 480
Theron at Agrigentum. Commences great temple 480
Cimon at Athens. Temple of Theseus built 469
Pericles at Athens. Parthenon finished 438
Temple of Jupiter at Olympia finished 436
Propylæa at Athens built, from 437 to 432
Selinus destroyed by Carthaginians 410
Erechtheium at Athens finished 409
Monument of Lysicrates at Athens 335
Death of Alexander the Great 324
Till within a very recent period the histories of Greece and Rome have been considered as the ancient histories of the world; and even now, in our universities and public schools, it is scarcely acknowledged that a more ancient record has been read on the monuments of Egypt and dug out of the bowels of the earth in Assyria.
It is nevertheless true that the decipherment of the hieroglyphics on the one hand, and the reading of the arrow-headed characters on the other, have disclosed to us two forms of civilisation anterior to that which reappeared in Greece in the 8th century before Christ. Based on those that preceded it, the Hellenic form developed itself there with a degree of perfection never before seen, nor has it, in its own peculiar department, ever been since surpassed.
These discoveries have been of the utmost importance, not only in correcting our hitherto narrow views of ancient history, but in assisting to explain much that was obscure, or utterly unintelligible, in those histories with which we were more immediately familiar. We now, for the first time, comprehend whence the Greeks obtained many of their arts and much of their civilisation, and to what extent the character of these was affected by the sources from which they were derived.
Having already described the artistic forms of Egypt and Assyria, it is not difficult to discover the origin of almost every idea, and of every architectural feature, that was afterwards found in Greece. But even with this assistance we should not be able to understand the phenomena which Greek art presents to us, were it not that the monuments reveal to us the existence of two distinct and separate races existing contemporaneously in Greece. If the Greeks were as purely Aryan as their language would lead us to believe, all our ethnographic theories are at fault. But this is precisely one of those cases where archæology steps in to supplement what philology tells us and to elucidate what that science fails to reveal. That the language of the Greeks, with the smallest possible admixture from other sources, is pure Aryan, no one will dispute: but their arts, their religion, and frequently their institutions, tend to ascribe to them an altogether different origin. Fortunately the ruins at Mycenæ and Orchomenos are sufficient to afford us a key to the mystery. From them we learn that at the time of the war of Troy a people were supreme in Greece who were not Hellenes, but who were closely allied to the Etruscans and other tomb-building, art-loving races. Whether they were purely Turanian, or merely ultra-Celtic, may be questioned; but one thing seems clear, that this people were then known to the ancients under the name of Pelasgi, and it is their presence in Greece, mixed up with the more purely Dorian races, which explains what would otherwise be unintelligible in Grecian civilisation.
Except from our knowledge of the existence of a strong infusion of Turanian blood into the veins of the Grecian people, it would be impossible to understand how a people so purely Aryan in appearance came to adopt a religion so essentially Anthropic and Ancestral. Their belief in oracles, their worship of trees,[124] and many minor peculiarities, were altogether abhorrent to the Aryan mind.
The existence of these two antagonistic elements satisfactorily explains how it was that while art was unknown in the purely Dorian city of Sparta, it flourished so exuberantly in the quasi-Pelasgic city of Athens; why the Dorians borrowed their architectural order from Egypt, and hardly changed its form during the long period they employed it; and how it came to pass that the eastern art of the Persians was brought into Greece, and how it was there modified so essentially that we hardly recognise the original in its altered and more perfect form. It explains, too, how the different States of Greece were artistic or matter-of-fact in the exact proportion in which either of the two elements predominated in the people.
Thus the poetry of Arcadia was unknown in the neighbouring State of Sparta; but the Doric race there remained true to their institutions and spread their colonies and their power farther than any other of the little principalities of Greece. The institutions of Lycurgus could never have been maintained in Athens; but, on the other hand, the Parthenon was as impossible in the Lacedemonian State. Even in Athens art would not have been the wonder that it became without that happy admixture of the two races which then prevailed, mingling the common sense of the one with the artistic feeling of the other, which tended to produce the most brilliant intellectual development which has yet dazzled the world with its splendour.
The contemporary presence of these two races perhaps also explains how Greek civilisation, though so wonderfully brilliant, passed so quickly away. Had either race been pure, the Dorian institutions might have lasted as long as the village-systems of India or the arts of Egypt or China; but where two dissimilar races mix, the tendency is inevitably to revert to the type of one, and, though the intermixture may produce a stock more brilliant than either parent, the type is less permanent and soon passes away. So soon was it the case, in this instance, that the whole of the great history of Greece may be said to be comprehended in the period ranging between the battle of Marathon (B.C. 490) and the peace concluded with Philip of Macedon by the Athenians (B.C. 346): so that the son of a man who was born before the first event may have been a party to the second. All those wonders of patriotism, of poetry, and art, for which Greece was famous, crowded into the short space of a century and a half, is a phenomenon the like of which the world has not seen before, and is not likely to witness again.
PELASGIC ART.
As might be expected, from the length of time that has elapsed since the Pelasgic races ruled in Greece, and owing to the numerous changes that have taken place in that country since their day, their architectural remains are few, and comparatively insignificant. It has thus come to pass that, were it not for their tombs, their city walls, and their works of civil engineering, such as bridges and tunnels—in which they were pre-eminent—we should hardly now possess any material remains to prove their existence or mark the degree of civilisation to which they had reached.
The most remarkable of these remains are the tombs of the kings of Mycenæ, a city which in Homeric times had a fair title to be considered the capital of Greece, or at all events to be considered one of the most important of her cities. The Dorians described these as treasuries, from the number of precious objects found in them, as in the tombs of the Etruscans, and because they looked upon such halls as far more than sufficient for the narrow dwellings of the dead. The most perfect and the largest of them now existing is known as the Treasury or Tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ, shown in plan and section in the annexed woodcut. The principal chamber is 48 ft. 6 in. in diameter, and is, or was when perfect, of the shape of a regular equilateral pointed arch, a form well adapted to the mode of construction, which is that of horizontal layers of stones, projecting the one beyond the other, till one small stone closed the whole, and made the vault complete.
As will be explained further on, this was the form of dome adopted by the Jaina architects in India. It prevailed also in Italy and Asia Minor wherever a Pelasgic race is traced, down to the time when the pointed form again came into use in the Middle Ages, though it was not then used as a horizontal, but as a radiating arch.
On one side of this hall is a chamber cut in the rock, the true sepulchre apparently, and externally is a long passage leading to a doorway, which, judging from the fragments that remain (Woodcut No. 125), must have been of a purely Asiatic form of art, and very unlike anything found subsequent to this period in Greece.
To all appearance the dome was lined internally with plates of brass or bronze, some nails of which metals are now found there; and the holes in which the nails were inserted are still to be seen all over the place. A second tomb or treasury of smaller dimensions was discovered by Dr. Schliemann in 1878. Another of these tombs, erected by Minyas at Orchomenos, described by Pausanias as one of the wonders of Greece,[125] seems from the remains still existing to have been at least 20 ft. wider than this one, and proportionably larger in every respect. All these were covered with earth, and some are probably still hidden which a diligent search might reveal. In fact Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries in the Acropolis of Mycenæ and in the Troad prove that it is still possible to discover an unrifled tomb even in Greece.
As domes constructed on the horizontal principle, these three are the largest of which we have any knowledge, though there does not appear to be any reasonable limit to the extent to which such a form of building might be carried. When backed by earth,[126] as these were, it is evident, from the mode of construction, that they cannot be destroyed by any equable pressure exerted from the exterior.
The only danger to be feared is, what is technically called a rising of the haunches; and to avoid this it might be necessary, where large domes were attempted, to adopt a form more nearly conical than that used at Mycenæ. This might be a less pleasing architectural feature, but it is constructively a better one than the form of the radiating domes we generally employ.
It is certainly to be regretted that more of the decorative features of this early style have not been discovered. They differ so entirely from anything else in Greece, and are so purely Asiatic in form, that it would be exceedingly interesting to be able to restore a complete decoration of any sort. In all the parts hitherto brought to light, an Ionic-like scroll is repeated in every part and over every detail, rather rudely executed, but probably originally heightened by colour. Its counterparts are found in Assyria and at Persepolis, but nowhere else in Greece.[127]
The Pelasgic races soon learnt to adopt for their doorways the more pleasing curvilinear form with which they were already familiar from their interiors. The annexed illustration (Woodcut No. 126) from a gateway at Thoricus, in Attica, serves to show its simplest and earliest form; and the illustration (Woodcut No. 129) from Assos, in Asia Minor, of a far more modern date, shows the most complicated form it took in ancient times. In this last instance it is merely a discharging arch, and so little fitted for the purpose to which it is applied, that we can only suppose that its adoption arose from a strong predilection for this shape.
Another illustration of Pelasgic masonry is found at Delos (Woodcut No. 127), consisting of a roof formed by two arch stones, at a certain angle to one another, similar to the plan adopted in Egypt, and is further interesting as being associated with capitals of pillars formed of the front part of bulls, as in Assyria, pointing again to the intimate connection that existed between Greece and Asia at this early period of the former’s history.
In all these instances it does not seem to have been so much want of knowledge that led these early builders to adopt the horizontal in preference to the radiating principle, as a conviction of its greater durability, as well, perhaps, as a certain predilection for an ancient mode.
In the construction of their walls they adhered, as a mere matter of taste, to forms which they must have known to be inferior to others. In the example, for instance, of a wall in the Peloponnesus (woodcut No. 128), we find the polygonal masonry of an earlier age actually placed upon as perfect a specimen built in regular courses, or what is technically called ashlar work, as any to be found in Greece; and on the other side of the gateway at Assos (Woodcut No. 129) there exists a semicircular arch, shown by the dotted lines, which is constructed horizontally, and could only have been copied from a radiating arch.
Their city walls are chiefly remarkable for the size of the blocks of stone used and for the beauty with which their irregular joints and courses are fitted into one another. Like most fortifications, they are generally devoid of ornament, the only architectural features being the openings. These are interesting, as showing the steps by which a peculiar form of masonry was perfected, and which, in after ages, led to important architectural results.
One of the most primitive of these buildings is a nameless ruin existing near Missolonghi (Woodcut No. 130). In it the sides of the opening are straight for the whole height, and, though making a very stable form of opening, it is one to which it is extremely difficult to fit doors, or to close by any known means. It was this difficulty that led to the next expedient adopted of inserting a lintel at a certain height, and making the jambs more perpendicular below, and more sloping above. This method is already exemplified in the tomb of Atreus (Woodcut No. 124), and in the Gate of the Lions at Mycenæ (Woodcut No. 131); but it is by no means clear whether the pediments were always filled up with sculpture, as in this instance, or left open. In the walls of a town they were probably always closed, but left open in a chamber. In the gate at Mycenæ the two lions stand against an altar[128] shaped like a pillar, of a form found only in Lycia, in which the round ends of the timbers of the roof are shown as if projecting into the frieze.
These are slight remains, it must be confessed, from which to reconstruct an art which had so much influence on the civilisation of Greece; but they are sufficient for the archæologist, as the existence of a few fossil fragments of the bones of an elephant or a tortoise suffice to prove the pre-existence of those animals wherever they have been found, and enable the palæontologist to reason upon them with almost as much certainty as if he saw them in a menagerie. Nor is it difficult to see why the remnants are so few. When Homer describes the imaginary dwelling of Alcinous—which he meant to be typical of a perfect palace in his day—he does not speak of its construction or solidity, nor tell us how symmetrically it was arranged; but he is lavish of his praise of its brazen walls, its golden doors with their silver posts and lintels—just as the writers of the Books of Kings and Chronicles praise the contemporary temple or palace of Solomon for similar metallic splendour.
The palace of Menelaus is described by the same author as full of brass and gold, silver and ivory. It was resplendent as the sun and moon, and appeared to the eye of Telemachus like the mansion of Jupiter himself.
On the architecture of the early Greek palaces considerable light has been thrown through the researches of the late Dr. Schliemann at Tiryns, on his second visit in 1884, when he was accompanied by Dr. Dörpfield, who measured and drew out the plan which is here reproduced (Woodcut No. 132). The palace at Tiryns is assumed by Dr. Schliemann to have been destroyed by fire in the 11th century B.C. It was built in the upper citadel and faced the south. The citadel was entered through a propylæum with outer and inner portico, both in antis. A second propylæum of smaller dimensions on the south of the entrance court gave access to the chief court of the palace; this court was surrounded by porticoes on three sides, and on the fourth or south side, a vestibule consisting of a portico-in-antis leading to an ante-chamber, and the megaron or men’s hall. The ante-chamber was separated from the portico by three folding-doors, hung on solid timber framing; a single door, probably closed by a curtain only, led from the ante-chamber to the men’s hall, measuring 48 ft. by 33 ft., the roof of which was supported on four pillars or columns; a circle in the centre of these indicated probably the hearth. There are various chambers on the west side, one of which, the bath-room, measuring 13 ft. by 10 ft., had a floor consisting of a gigantic block of limestone 2 ft. thick and weighing 14 to 15 tons. On the east side of the men’s hall was a second court with vestibule or south side leading to the women’s hall (thalamos), 24 ft. by 17 ft., and various other rooms on the west side of it. To the south of the women’s court was a third court which may be considered to be the court of service, with a passage leading direct to the entrance propylon of the citadel.
The walls were built in rubble masonry and clay mortar (clay mixed with straw or hay); the foundations were carried from 6 ft. to 8 ft. below the ground. The walls were protected externally; first by a layer of clay of various thicknesses and then with a plaster of lime about half an inch thick. The upper portions of the walls generally consisted of sun-dried bricks, and in order to give greater strength to the walls, beams laid on thin slabs of stone (to give a horizontal bed) were built into the outer surface. Blocks of hard limestone or breccia were used for all the steps and door cills. The exposed angles of the walls and the responds or antæ[129] of the columns were built of stone in the lower part and wood above (in Troy they were always in wood with a stone base). Opinions differ as to the lighting of the halls; the smaller chambers were probably lighted through the door, as in Pompeii; but the men’s and women’s halls must either have received their light through openings at the side under the roof, or by a raised lantern over the hearth before referred to.
No temples are mentioned by Homer, nor by any early writer; but the funereal rites celebrated in honour of Patroclus, as described in the XXIII. Book of the Iliad, and the mounds still existing on the Plains of Troy, testify to the character of the people whose manners and customs he was describing, and would alone be sufficient to convince us that, except in their tombs, we should find little to commemorate their previous existence.
The subject is interesting, and deserves far more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon it, and more space than can be devoted to it here. Not only is this art the art of people who warred before Troy, but our knowledge of it reveals to us a secret which otherwise might for ever have remained a mystery. The religion of the Homeric poems is essentially Anthropic and Ancestral—in other words, of Turanian origin, with hardly a trace of Aryan feeling running through it. When we know that the same was the case with the arts of those days, we feel that it could not well be otherwise; but what most excites our wonder is the power of the poet, whose song, describing the manners and feelings of an extinct race, was so beautiful as to cause its adoption as a gospel by a people of another race, tincturing their religion to the latest hour of their existence.
We have very little means of knowing how long this style of art lasted in Greece. The treasury built by Myron king of Sicyon at Olympia about 650 B.C. seems to have been of this style, in so far as we can judge of it by the description of Pausanias.[130] It consisted of two chambers, one ornamented in the Doric, one in the Ionic style, not apparently with pillars, but with that kind of decoration which appears at that period to have been recognised as peculiar to each. But the entire decorations seem to have been of brass, the weight of metal employed being recorded in an inscription on the building. The earliest example of a Doric temple that we know of—that of Corinth—would appear to belong to very nearly the same age, so that the 7th century B.C. may probably be taken as the period when the old Turanian form of Pelasgic art gave way before the sterner and more perfect creations of a purer Hellenic design. Perhaps it might be more correct to say that the Hellenic history of Greece commenced with the Olympiads (B.C. 776), but before that kingdom bloomed into perfection an older civilisation had passed away, leaving little beyond a few tombs and works of public utility as records of its prior existence. It left, however, an undying influence which can be traced through every subsequent stage of Grecian history, which gave form to that wonderful artistic development of art, the principal if not the only cause of the unrivalled degree of perfection to which it subsequently attained.
II. HELLENIC GREECE
HISTORY OF THE ORDERS.
The culminating period of the Pelasgic civilisation of Greece was at the time of the war with Troy—the last great military event of that age, and the one which seems to have closed the long and intimate connection of the Greek Pelasgians with their cognate races in Asia.
Sixty years later the irruption of the Thessalians, and twenty years after that event the return of the Heracleidæ, closed, in a political sense, that chapter in history, and gave rise to what may be styled the Hellenic civilisation, which proved the great and true glory of Greece.
Four centuries, however, elapsed, which may appropriately be called the dark ages of Greece, before the new seed bore fruit, at least in so far as art is concerned. These ages produced, it is true, the laws of Lycurgus, a characteristic effort of a truly Aryan race, conferring as they did on the people who made them that power of self-government, and capacity for republican institutions, which gave them such stability at home and so much power abroad, but which were as inimical to the softer glories of the fine arts in Sparta as they have proved elsewhere.
When, after this long night, architectural art reappeared, it was at Corinth, under the Cypselidæ, a race of strongly-marked Asiatic tendencies; but it had in the meantime undergone so great a transformation as to well-nigh bewilder us. On its reappearance it was no longer characterised by the elegant and ornate art of Mycenæ and the cognate forms of Asiatic growth, but had assumed the rude, bold proportions of Egyptian art, and with almost more than Egyptian massiveness.
DORIC TEMPLES IN GREECE.
The age of the Doric temple at Corinth is not, it is true, satisfactorily determined; but the balance of evidence would lead us to believe that it belongs to the age of Cypselus, or about 650 B.C. The pillars are less than four diameters in height, and the architrave—the only part of the superstructure that now remains—is proportionately heavy. It is, indeed, one of the most massive specimens of architecture existing, more so than even the rock-cut prototype at Beni Hasan. As a work of art, it fails from excess of strength, a fault common to most of the efforts of a rude people, ignorant of the true resources of art, and striving, by the expression of physical power alone, to attain its objects.
Next in age to this is the little temple at Ægina.[131] Its date, too, is unknown, though, judging from the character of its sculpture, it probably belongs to the middle of the sixth century before Christ.
We know that Athens had a great temple on the Acropolis, contemporary with these, and the frusta of its columns still remain, which, after its destruction by the Persians, were built into the walls of the citadel. It is more than probable that all the principal cities of Greece had temples commensurate with their dignity before the Persian War. Many of these were destroyed during that struggle; but it also happened then, as in France and England in the 12th and 13th centuries, that the old temples were thought unworthy of the national greatness, and of that feeling of exaltation arising from the successful result of the greatest of their wars, so that almost all those which remained were pulled down or rebuilt. The consequence is, that nearly all the great temples now found in Greece were built in the forty or fifty years which succeeded the defeat of the Persians at Salamis and Platæa.
One of the oldest temples of this class is that best known as the Theseion or Temple of Theseus at Athens, now recognised as the Temple of Hephaistos mentioned in the “Attica” of Pausanias. By an analysis of the architectural character of the Temple Dr. Dorpfield contends that it is posterior to the Parthenon and not anterior, as is generally supposed.
Of all the great temples, the best and most celebrated is the Parthenon, the only octastyle Doric Temple in Greece, and in its own class undoubtedly the most beautiful building in the world. It is true it has neither the dimensions nor the wondrous expression of power and eternity inherent in Egyptian temples, nor has it the variety and poetry of the Gothic Cathedral; but for intellectual beauty, for perfection of proportion, for beauty of detail, and for the exquisite perception of the highest and most recondite principles of art ever applied to architecture, it stands utterly and entirely alone and unrivalled—the glory of Greece and a reproach to the rest of the world.
Next in size and in beauty to this was the great hexastyle temple of Jupiter at Olympia, finished two years later than the Parthenon. Its dimensions were nearly the same, but having only six pillars in front instead of eight, as in the Parthenon, the proportions were different, this temple being 95 ft. by 230, the Parthenon 101 ft. by 227.
The excavations at Olympia, undertaken at the cost of the German Government in 1876, not only laid bare the site of the Temple of Jupiter, of which the lower frusta of half the column, the lower portions of the walls of cella and nearly the whole of the pavement was found in situ; but led to the recovery of a great portion of the sculptures which decorated the metopes and filled the pediments, so that it is not only possible to restore the complete design of the temple itself but to obtain a distinct idea of its sculptural decoration. The foundations of other Doric temples were found; of the Temple of Hera, which seems originally to have been a wooden structure, the wood being gradually replaced by stone when from its decay it required renewal.[132] This temple was coeval if not more ancient than that of Zeus; the interior of the cella would seem to have been subdivided into bays or niches inside, similar to those of the Temple at Bassæ; a third hexastyle Doric temple, the Metroum, was also discovered, and many buildings dating from the Roman occupation.
To the same age belongs the exquisite little Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassæ (47 ft. by 125), the Temple of Minerva at Sunium, the greater temple at Rhamnus, the Propylæa at Athens, and indeed all that is greatest and most beautiful in the architecture of Greece. The temple of Ceres at Eleusis also was founded and designed at this period, but its execution belongs to a later date.
The temple at Assos, though not of any great size, is interesting on account of its having had the outer face of the architrave sculptured in relief, requiring therefore an architectural frame which was obtained by leaving a raised fillet along the bottom. The temple was hexastyle-peristyle with pronaos but no posticum. The date is assumed to be about 470 B.C., or shortly after the battle of Mycale.[133]
DORIC TEMPLES IN SICILY.
Owing probably to some local peculiarity, which we have not now the means of explaining, the Dorian colonies of Sicily and Magna Græcia seem to have possessed, in the days of their prosperity, a greater number of temples, and certainly retain the traces of many more, than were or are to be found in any of the great cities of the mother country. The one city of Selinus alone possesses six, in two groups,—three in the citadel and three in the city. Of these the oldest is the central one of the first-named group. Its sculptures, first discovered by Messrs. Angell and Harris, indicate an age only slightly subsequent to the foundation of the colony, B.C. 636, and therefore probably nearly contemporary with the example above mentioned at Corinth. The most modern is the great octastyle temple, which seems to have been left unfinished at the time of the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians, B.C. 410. It measured 375 ft. by 166, and was consequently very much larger than any temple of its class in Greece. The remaining four range between these dates, and therefore form a tolerably perfect chronometric series at that time when the arts of Greece itself fail us. The inferiority, however, of provincial art, as compared with that of Greece itself, prevents us from applying such a test with too much confidence to the real history of the art, though it is undoubtedly valuable as a secondary illustration.
At Agrigentum there are three Doric temples, two small hexastyles, whose age may be about 500 to 480 B.C., and one great exceptional example, differing in its arrangements from all the Grecian temples of the age. Its dimensions are 360 ft. long by 173 broad, and consequently very nearly the same as those of the great Temple of Selinus just alluded to. Its date is perfectly known, as it was commenced by Theron, B.C. 480, and left unfinished seventy-five years afterwards, when the city was destroyed by the Carthaginians.
At Syracuse there still exist the ruins of a very beautiful temple of this age; and at Segesta are remains of another in a much more perfect state.
Pæstum, in Magna Græcia, boasts of the most magnificent group of temples after that at Agrigentum. One is a very beautiful hexastyle, belonging probably to the middle of the fifth century B.C., built in a bold and very pure style of Doric architecture, and still retains the greater part of its internal columnar arrangement.
The other two are more modern, and are far less pure both in plan and in detail, one having nine columns at each end, the central pillars of which are meant to correspond with an internal range of pillars, supporting the ridge of the roof. The other, though of a regular form, is so modified by local peculiarities, so corrupt, in fact, as hardly to deserve being ranked with the beautiful order which it most resembles.
IONIC TEMPLES.
We have even fewer materials for the history of the Ionic order in Greece than we have for that of the Doric. The recent discoveries in Assyria have proved beyond a doubt that the Ionic was even more essentially an introduction from Asia[134] than the Doric was from Egypt: the only question is, when it was brought into Greece. My own impression is, that it existed there in one form or another from the earliest ages, but owing to its slenderer proportions, and the greater quantity of wood used in its construction, the examples may have perished, so that nothing is now known to exist which can lay claim to even so great an antiquity as the Persian War.
The oldest example, probably, was the temple on the Ilissus, now destroyed, dating from about 484 B.C.; next to this is the little gem of a temple dedicated to Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, built about fifteen years later, in front of the Propylæa at Athens. The last and most perfect of all the examples of this order is the Erechtheium, on the Acropolis; its date is apparently about 420 B.C., the great epoch of Athenian art. Nowhere did the exquisite taste and skill of the Athenians show themselves to greater advantage than here; for though every detail of the order may be traced back to Nineveh or Persepolis, all are so purified, so imbued with purely Grecian taste and feeling, that they have become essential parts of a far more beautiful order than ever existed in the land in which they had their origin.
The largest, and perhaps the finest, of Grecian Ionic temples was that built about a century afterwards at Tegea, in Arcadia—a regular peripteral temple of considerable dimensions, but the existence of which is now known only from the description of Pausanias.[135]
As in the case, however, of the Doric order, it is not in Greece itself that we find either the greatest number of Ionic temples or those most remarkable for size, but in the colonies in Asia Minor, and more especially in Ionia, whence the order most properly takes its name.
That an Ionic order existed in Asia Minor before the Persian War is quite certain, but all examples perished in that memorable struggle; and when it subsequently reappeared, the order had lost much of its purely Asiatic character, and assumed certain forms and tendencies borrowed from the simpler and purer Doric style.
If any temple in the Asiatic Greek colonies escaped destruction in the Persian wars, it was that of Juno at Samos. It is said to have been built by Polycrates, and appears to have been of the Doric order. The ruins now found there are of the Ionic order, 346 ft. by 190 ft., and must have succeeded the first mentioned. The apparent archaisms in the form of the bases, &c., which have misled antiquarians, are merely Eastern forms retained in spite of Grecian influence.
More remarkable even than this was the celebrated Temple of Diana at Ephesus, said by Pliny to have been 425 ft. long by 220 ft. wide. Recent excavations on the site, however, carried out by Mr. T. Wood, prove that these dimensions apply only to the platform on which it stood. The temple itself, measured from the outside of the angle pillars, was only 348 ft. by 164, making the area 57,072 ft., or about the average dimensions of our mediæval cathedrals.
Besides these, there was a splendid decastyle temple, dedicated to Apollo Didymæus, at Miletus, 156 ft. wide by 295 ft. in length; an octastyle at Sardis, 261 ft. by 144 ft.; an exquisitely beautiful, though small hexastyle, at Priene, 122 ft. by 64 ft.; and another at Teos, and smaller examples elsewhere, besides many others which have no doubt perished.
German explorations in Pergamon have brought to light the remains of the Augustæum, a building consisting of two detached wings with columns of the Ionic order resting on a lofty podium enriched with sculpture and connected one with the other by a magnificent flight of steps, the whole block measuring 125 ft. by 114 ft.[136]
CORINTHIAN TEMPLES.
The Corinthian order is as essentially borrowed from the bell-shaped capitals of Egypt as the Doric is from their oldest pillars. Like everything they touched, the Greeks soon rendered it their own by the freedom and elegance with which they treated it. The acanthus-leaf with which they adorned it is essentially Grecian, and we must suppose that it had been used by them as an ornament, either in their metal or wood work, long before they adopted it in stone as an architectural feature.
As in everything else, however, the Greeks could not help betraying in this also the Asiatic origin of their art, and the Egyptian order with them was soon wedded to the Ionic, whose volutes became an essential though subdued part of this order. It is in fact a composite order, made up of the bell-shaped capitals of the Egyptians and the spiral of the Assyrians, and adopted by the Greeks at a time when national distinctions were rapidly disappearing, and when true and severer art was giving place to love of variety. At that time also mere ornament and carving were supplanting the purer class of forms and the higher aspirations of sculpture with which the Greeks ornamented their temples in their best days.
In Greece the order does not appear to have been introduced, or at least generally used, before the age of Alexander the Great; the oldest authentic example, and also one of the most beautiful, being the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (B.C. 335), which, notwithstanding the smallness of its dimensions, is one of the most beautiful works of art of the merely ornamental class to be found in any part of the world. A simpler example, but by no means so beautiful, is that of the porticoes of the small octagonal building commonly called the Tower of the Winds at Athens. The largest example in Greece of the Corinthian order is the Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens. This, however, may almost be called a Roman building, though on Grecian soil—having been commenced in its present form under Antiochus Epiphanes, in the second century B.C. by the Roman architect Cossutius, and only finished by Hadrian, to whom probably we may ascribe the greatest part of what now remains. Its dimensions are 135 ft. by 354 ft., and from the number of its columns, their size and their beauty, it must have been when complete the most beautiful Corinthian temple of the ancient world.
Judging, however, from some fragments found among the Ionic temples of Asia Minor, it appears that the Corinthian order was introduced there before we find any trace of it in Greece Proper. Indeed, à priori, we might expect that its introduction into Greece was part of that reaction which the elegant and luxurious Asiatics exercised on the severer and more manly inhabitants of European Greece, and which was in fact the main cause of their subjection, first to the Macedonians, and finally beneath the iron yoke of Rome. As used by the Asiatics, it seems to have arisen from the introduction of the bell-shaped capital of the Egyptians, to which they applied the acanthus-leaf, sometimes in conjunction with the honeysuckle ornament of the time, as in Woodcut No. 135, and on other and later occasions together with the volutes of the same order, the latter combination being the one which ultimately prevailed and became the typical form of the Corinthian capital.
DIMENSIONS OF GREEK TEMPLES.
Although differing so essentially in plan, the general dimensions of the larger temples of the Greeks were very similar to those of the mediæval cathedrals, and although they never reached the altitude of their modern rivals, their cubic dimensions were probably in about the same ratio of proportion.
The following table gives the approximate dimensions, rejecting fractions, of the eight largest and best known examples:—
Juno, at Samos 346 feet long 190 feet wide = 65,740 feet. Jupiter, at Agrigentum 360 feet long 173 feet wide = 62,280 feet. Apollo, at Branchidæ 362 feet long 168 feet wide = 60,816 feet. Diana, at Ephesus 348 feet long 164 feet wide = 57,072 feet. Jupiter, at Athens 354 feet long 135 feet wide = 47,790 feet. Didymæus, at Miletus 295 feet long 156 feet wide = 45,020 feet. Cybele, at Sardis 261 feet long 144 feet wide = 37,884 feet. Parthenon, at Athens 228 feet long 101 feet wide = 23,028 feet.
There may be some slight discrepancies in this table from the figures quoted elsewhere, and incorrectness arising from some of the temples being measured on the lowest step and others, as the Parthenon, on the highest; but it is sufficient for comparison, which is all that is attempted in its compilation.
DORIC ORDER.
The Doric was the order which the Greeks especially loved and cultivated so as to make it most exclusively their own; and, as used in the Parthenon, it certainly is as complete and as perfect an architectural feature as any style can boast of. When first introduced from Egypt, it, as before stated, partook of even more than Egyptian solidity, but by degrees became attenuated to the weak and lean form of the Roman order of the same name. Woodcuts No. 136, 137, 138 illustrate the three stages of progress from the oldest example at Corinth to the order as used in the time of Philip at Delos, the intermediate being the culminating point in the age of Pericles: the first is 4·47 diameters in height, the next 6·025, the last 7·015; and if the table were filled up with all the other examples, the gradual attenuation of the shaft would very nearly give the relative date of the example. This fact is in itself sufficient to refute the idea of the pillar being copied from a wooden post, as in that case it would have been slenderer at first, and would gradually have departed from the wooden form as the style advanced.[137] This is the case in all carpentry styles. With the Doric order the contrary takes place. The earlier the example the more unlike it is to any wooden original. As the masons advanced in skill and power over their stone material, it came more and more to resemble posts or pillars of wood. The fact appears to be that, either in Egypt or in early Greece, the pillar was originally a pier of brickwork, or of rubble masonry, supporting a wooden roof, of which the architraves, the triglyphs, and the various parts of the cornice, all bore traces down to the latest period.
Even as ordinarily represented, or as copied in this country, there is a degree of solidity combined with elegance in this order, and an exquisite proportion of the parts to one another and to the work they have to perform, that command the admiration of every person of taste; but, as used in Greece, its beauty was very much enhanced by a number of refinements whose existence was not suspected till lately, and even now cannot be detected but by the most practised eye.
The columns were at first assumed to be bounded by straight lines. It is now found that they have an entasis, or convex profile, in the Parthenon to the extent of 1/550 of the whole height, and are outlined by a very delicate hyperbolic curve; it is true this can hardly be detected by the eye in ordinary positions, but the want of it gives that rigidity and poverty to the column which is observable in modern examples.[138]
In like manner, the architrave in all temples was carried upwards so as to form a very flat arch, just sufficient to correct the optical delusion arising from the interference of the sloping lines of the pediment. This, I believe, was common to all temples, but in the Parthenon the curve was applied to the sides also, though from what motive it is not so easy to detect.
Another refinement was making all the columns slope slightly inwards, so as to give an idea of strength and support to the whole. Add to this, that all the curved lines used were either hyperbolas or parabolas. With one exception only, no circular line was employed, nor even an ellipse. Every part of the temple was also arranged with the most unbounded care and accuracy, and every detail of the masonry was carried out with a precision and beauty of execution which is almost unrivalled, and it may be added that the material of the whole was the purest and best white marble. All these delicate adjustments, this exquisite finish and attention to even the smallest details, are well bestowed on a design in itself simple, beautiful, and appropriate. They combine to render this order, as found in the best Greek temples, as nearly faultless as any work of art can possibly be, and such as we may dwell upon with the most unmixed and unvarying satisfaction.
The system of definite proportion which the Greeks employed in the design of their temples, was another cause of the effect they produce even on uneducated minds. It was not with them merely that the height was equal to the width, or the length about twice the breadth; but every part was proportioned to all those parts with which it was related, in some such ratio as 1 to 6, 2 to 7, 3 to 8, 4 to 9, or 5 to 10, &c. As the scheme advances these numbers become undesirably high. In this case they reverted to some such simple ratios as 4 to 5, 5 to 6, 6 to 7, and so on.
We do not yet quite understand the process of reasoning by which the Greeks arrived at the laws which guided their practice in this respect; but they evidently attached the utmost importance to it, and when the ratio was determined upon, they set it out with such accuracy, that even now the calculated and the measured dimensions seldom vary beyond such minute fractions as can only be expressed in hundredths of an inch.
Though the existence of such a system of ratios has long been suspected, it is only recently that any measurements of Greek temples have been made with sufficient accuracy to enable the matter to be properly investigated and their existence proved.[139]
The ratios are in some instances so recondite, and the correlation of the parts at first sight so apparently remote, that many would be inclined to believe they were more fanciful than real.[140] It would, however, be as reasonable in a person with no ear, or no musical education, to object to the enjoyment of a complicated concerted piece of music experienced by those differently situated, or to declare that the pain musicians feel from a false note was mere affectation. The eyes of the Greeks were as perfectly educated as our ears. They could appreciate harmonies which are lost in us, and were offended at false quantities which our duller senses fail to perceive. But in spite of ourselves, we do feel the beauty of these harmonic relations, though we hardly know why; and if educated to them, we might acquire what might almost be considered a new sense. But be this as it may, there can be no doubt but that a great deal of the beauty which all feel in contemplating the architectural productions of the Greeks, arises from causes such as these, which we are only now beginning to appreciate.
To understand, however, the Doric order, we must not regard it as a merely masonic form. Sculpture was always used, or intended to be used, with it. The Metopes between the triglyphs, the pediments of the porticoes, and the acroteria or pedestals on the roof, are all unmeaning and useless unless filled or surmounted with sculptured figures. Sculpture is, indeed, as essential a part of this order as the acanthus-leaves and ornaments of the cornice are to the capitals and entablature of the Corinthian order; and without it, or without its place being supplied by painting, we are merely looking at the dead skeleton, the mere framework of the order, without the flesh and blood that gave it life and purpose.
It is when all these parts are combined together, as in the portico of the Parthenon (Woodcut No. 139), that we can understand this order in all its perfection; for though each part was beautiful in itself, their full value can be appreciated only as parts of a great whole.
Another essential part of the order, too often overlooked, is the colour, which was as integral a part of it as its form. Till very lately, it was denied that Greek temples were, or could be, painted: the unmistakable remains of colour, however, that have been discovered in almost all temples, and the greater knowledge of the value and use of it which now prevails, have altered public opinion very much on the matter, and most people now admit that some colour was used, though few are agreed as to the extent to which it was carried.
It cannot now be questioned that colour was used everywhere internally, and on every object. Externally too it is generally admitted that the sculpture was painted and relieved by strongly coloured backgrounds; the lacunaria, or recesses of the roof, were also certainly painted; and all the architectural mouldings, which at a later period were carved in relief, have been found to retain traces of their painted ornaments.
It is disputed whether the echinus or carved moulding of the capital was so ornamented. There seems little doubt but that it was; and that the walls of the cells were also coloured throughout and covered with paintings illustrative of the legends and attributes of the divinity to whom the temple was dedicated or of the purposes for which it was erected. The plane face of the architrave was probably left white, or merely ornamented with metal shields or inscriptions, and the shafts of the columns appear also to have been left plain, or merely slightly stained to tone down the crudeness of the white marble. Generally speaking, all those parts which from their form or position were in any degree protected from the rain or atmospheric influences seem to have been coloured; those particularly exposed, to have been left plain. To whatever extent, however, painting may have been carried, these coloured ornaments were as essential a part of the Doric order as the carved ornaments were of the Corinthian, and made it, when perfect, a richer and more ornamental, as it was a more solid and stable, order than the latter. The colour nowhere interfered with the beauty of its forms, but gave it that richness and amount of ornamentation which is indispensable in all except the most colossal buildings, and a most valuable adjunct even to them.
IONIC ORDER.
The Ionic order, as we now find it, is not without some decided advantages over the Doric. It is more complete in itself and less dependent on sculpture. Its frieze was too small for much display of human life and action, and was probably usually ornamented with lines of animals,[141] like the friezes at Persepolis. But the frieze of the little temple of Nikè Apteros is brilliantly ornamented in the same style as those of the Doric order. It also happened that those details and ornaments which were only painted in the Doric, were carved in the Ionic order, and remain therefore visible to the present day, which gives to this order a completeness in our eyes which the other cannot boast of. Add to this a certain degree of Asiatic elegance and grace, and the whole when put together makes up a singularly pleasing architectural object. But notwithstanding these advantages, the Doric order will probably always be admitted to be superior, as belonging to a higher class of art, and because all its forms and details are better and more adapted to their purpose than those of the Ionic.
The principal characteristic of the Ionic order is the Pelasgic or Asiatic spiral, here called a volute, which, notwithstanding its elegance, forms at best but an awkward capital. The Assyrian honeysuckle below this, carved as it is with the exquisite feeling and taste which a Greek alone knew how to impart to such an object, forms as elegant an architectural detail as is anywhere to be found; and whether used as the necking of a column, or on the crowning member of a cornice, or on other parts of the order, is everywhere the most beautiful ornament connected with it. Comparing this order with that at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 96), the only truly Asiatic prototype we have of it, we see how much the Doric feeling of the Greeks had done to sober it down, by abbreviating the capital and omitting the greater part of the base. This process was carried much farther when the order was used in conjunction with the Doric, as in the Propylæa, than when used by itself, as in the Erechtheium; still in every case all the parts found in the Asiatic style are found in the Greek. The same form and feelings pervade both; and, except in beauty of execution and detail, it is not quite clear how far even the Greek order is an improvement on the Eastern one. The Persepolitan base is certainly the more beautiful of the two; so are many parts of the capital. The perfection of the whole, however, depends on the mode in which it is employed; and it is perfectly evident that the Persian order could not be combined with the Doric, nor applied with much propriety as an external order, which was the essential use of all the Grecian forms of pillars.
When used between antæ or square piers, as seems usually to have been the case in Assyria, the two-fronted form of the Ionic capital was appropriate and elegant; but when it was employed, as in the Erechtheium, as an angle column, it presented a difficulty which even Grecian skill and ingenuity could not quite conquer. When the Persians wanted the capital to face four ways they turned the side outwards, as at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 96), and put the volutes in the angles—which was at best but an awkward mode of getting over the difficulty.
The instance in which these difficulties have been most successfully met is in the internal order at Bassæ. There the three sides are equal, and are equally seen—the fourth is attached to the wall—and the junction of the faces is formed with an elegance that has never been surpassed. It has not the richness of the order of the Erechtheium, but it excels it in elegance. Its widely spreading base still retains traces of the wooden origin of the order, and carries us back towards the times when a shoe was necessary to support wooden posts on the floor of an Assyrian hall.
Notwithstanding the amount of carving which the Ionic order displays, there can be little doubt of its having been also ornamented with colour to a considerable extent, but probably in a different manner from the Doric. My own impression is, that the carved parts were gilt, or picked out with gold, relieved by coloured grounds, varied according to the situation in which they were found. The existing remains prove that colours were used in juxtaposition, to relieve and heighten the architectural effect of the carved ornaments of this order.
In the Ionic temples at Athens the same exquisite masonry was used as in the Doric; the same mathematical precision and care is bestowed on the entasis of the columns, the drawing of the volutes, and the execution of even the minutest details; and much of its beauty and effect are no doubt owing to this circumstance, which we miss so painfully in nearly all modern examples.
CORINTHIAN ORDER.
As before mentioned, the Corinthian order was only introduced into Greece on the decline of art, and never rose during the purely Grecian age to the dignity of a temple order. It most probably, however, was used in the more ornate specimens of domestic architecture, and in smaller works of art, long before any of those examples of it were executed which we now find in Greece.
The most typical specimen we now know is that of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (Woodcut No. 143), which, notwithstanding all its elegance of detail and execution, can hardly be pronounced to be perfect, the Egyptian and Asiatic features being only very indifferently united to one another. The foliaged part is rich and full, but is not carried up into the upper or Ionic portion, which is, in comparison, lean and poor; and though separately the two parts are irreproachable, it was left to the Romans so to blend the two together as to make a perfectly satisfactory whole out of them.
In this example, as now existing, the junction of the column with the capital is left a plain sinking, and so it is generally copied in modern times; but there can be little doubt that this was originally filled by a bronze wreath, which was probably gilt. Accordingly this is so represented in the woodcut as being essential to the completion of the order. The base and shaft have, like the upper part of the capital, more Ionic feeling in them than the order was afterwards allowed to retain; and altogether it is, as here practised, far more elegant, though less complete, than the Roman form which superseded it.
The other Athenian example, that of the Tower of the winds (Woodcut No. 144), is remarkable as being almost purely Egyptian in its types, with no Ionic admixture. The columns have no bases, the capitals no volutes, and the water-leaf clings as closely to the bell as it does in the Egyptian examples. The result altogether wants richness, and, though appropriate on so small a scale, would hardly be pleasing on a larger.
The great example of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius differs in no essential part from the Roman order, except that the corners of the abacus are not cut off; and that, being executed in Athens, there is a degree of taste and art displayed in its execution which we do not find in any Roman examples. Strictly speaking, however, it belongs to that school, and should be enumerated as a Roman, and not as a Grecian, example.
CARYATIDES.
It has been already explained that the Egyptians never used caryatide figures, properly so called, to support the entablatures of their architecture, their figures being always attached to the front of the columns or piers, which were the real bearing mass. At Persepolis, and elsewhere in the East, we find figures everywhere employed supporting the throne or the platform of the palaces of the kings; not, indeed, on their heads, as the Greeks used them, but rather in their uplifted hands.
The name, however, as well as their being only used in conjunction with the Ionic order and with Ionic details, all point to an Asiatic origin for this very questionable form of art. As employed in the little Portico attached to the Erechtheium, these figures are used with so much taste, and all the ornaments are so elegant, that it is difficult to criticise or find fault; but it is nevertheless certain that it was a mistake which even the art of the Greeks could hardly conceal. To use human figures to support a cornice is unpardonable, unless it is done as a mere secondary adjunct to a building. In the Erechtheium it is a little too prominent for this, though used with as much discretion as was perhaps possible under the circumstances. Another example of the sort is shown in Woodcut No. 146, which, by employing a taller cap, avoids some of the objections to the other; but the figure itself, on the other hand, is less architectural, and so errs on the other side.
Another form of this class of support is that of the Giants or Telamones, instances of which are found supporting the roof of the great Temple at Agrigentum, and in the baths of the semi-Greek city of Pompeii. As they do not actually bear the entablature, but only seem to relieve the masonry behind them, their employment is less objectionable than that of the female figures above described; but even they hardly fulfil the conditions of true art, and their place might be better filled by some more strictly architectural feature.
FORMS OF TEMPLES.
The arrangements of Grecian Doric temples show almost less variety than the forms of the pillars, and no materials exist for tracing their gradual development in an historical point of view. The temples at Corinth, and the oldest at Selinus, are both perfect examples of the hexastyle arrangement to which the Greeks adhered in all ages; and though there can be little doubt that the peripteral form, as well as the order itself, was borrowed from Egypt, it still was so much modified before it appeared in Greece, that it would be interesting, if it could be done, to trace the several steps by which the change was effected.
In an architectural point of view this is by no means difficult. The simplest Greek temples were mere cells, or small square apartments suited to contain an image—the front being what is technically called distyle in antis, or with two pillars between antæ, or square pilaster like piers terminating the side walls. Hence the interior enclosure of Grecian temples is called the cell or cella, however large and splendid it may be.
The next change was to separate the interior into a cell and porch by a wall with a large doorway in it, as in the small temple at Rhamnus (Woodcut No. 148), where the opening however can scarcely be called a doorway, as it extends to the roof. A third change was to put a porch of 4 pillars in front of the last arrangement, or, as appears to have been more usual, to bring forward the screen to the positions of the pillars as in the last example, and to place the 4 pillars in front of this. None of these plans admitted of a peristyle, or pillars on the flanks. To obtain this it was necessary to increase the number of pillars of the portico to 6, or, as it is termed, to make it hexastyle, the 2 outer pillars being the first of a range of 13 or 15 columns, extended along each side of the temple. The cell in this arrangement was a complete temple in itself—distyle in antis, most frequently made so at both ends, and the whole enclosed in its envelope of columns, as in Woodcut No. 149. Sometimes the cell was tetrastyle or with four pillars in front.
In this form the Greek temple may be said to be complete, very few exceptions occurring to the rule, though the Parthenon itself is one of these few. It has an inner hexastyle portico at each end of the cell; beyond these outwardly are octastyle porticoes, with 17 columns on each flank.
The great Temple at Selinus is also octastyle, but it is neither so simple nor so beautiful in its arrangement; and, from the decline of style in the art when it was built, is altogether an inferior example; still, as one of the largest of Greek Doric temples, its plan is worthy of being quoted as an illustration of the varying forms of these temples.
Another great exception is the great temple at Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos. 152 and 154), where the architect attempted an order on so gigantic a scale that he was unable to construct the pillars with their architraves standing free. The interstices of the columns are therefore built up with walls pierced with windows, and altogether the architecture is so bad, that even its colossal dimensions must have failed to render it at any time a pleasing or satisfactory work of art.
A fourth exception is the double temple at Pæstum, with 9 pillars in front, a clumsy expedient, but which arose from its having a range of columns down the centre to support the ridge of the roof by a simpler mode than the triangular truss usually employed for carrying the roof between two ranges of column.
With the exception of the temple at Agrigentum, all these were peristylar, or had ranges of columns all around them, enclosing the cell as it were in a case, an arrangement so apparently devoid of purpose, that it is not at first sight easy to account for its universality. It will not suffice to say that it was adopted merely because it was beautiful, for the forms of Egyptian temples, which had no pillars externally, were as perfect, and in the hands of the Greeks would have become as beautiful, as the one they adopted. Besides, it is natural to suppose they would rather have copied the larger than the smaller temples, if no motive existed for their preference of the latter. The peristyle, too, was ill suited for an ambulatory, or place for processions to circulate round the temple; it was too narrow for this, and too high to protect the procession from the rain. Indeed, I know of no suggestion except that it may have been adopted to protect the paintings on the walls of the cells from the inclemency of the weather. It hardly admits of a doubt that the walls were painted, and that without protection of some sort this would very soon have been obliterated. It seems also very evident that the peristyle was not only practically, but artistically, most admirably adapted for this purpose. The paintings of the Greeks were, like those of the Egyptians, composed of numerous detached groups, connected only by the story, and it almost required the intervention of pillars, or some means of dividing into compartments the surface to be so painted, to separate these groups from one another, and to prevent the whole sequence from being seen at once; while, on the other hand, nothing can have been more beautiful than the white marble columns relieved against a richly coloured plane surface. The one appears so necessary to the other, that it seems hardly to be doubted that this was the cause, or that the effect must have been most surpassingly beautiful.
MODE OF LIGHTING TEMPLES.
The arrangement of the interior of Grecian temples necessarily depended on the mode in which they were lighted. No one will, I believe, now contend, as was once done, that it was by lamplight alone that the beauty of their interiors could be seen; and as light certainly was not introduced through the side walls, nor could be in sufficient quantities through the doorways, it is only from the roof that it could be admitted. At the same time it could not have been by a large horizontal opening in the roof, as has been supposed, as that would have admitted the rain and snow as well as the light; and the only alternative seems to be one I suggested some years ago—of a clerestory,[142] similar internally to that found in all the great Egyptian temples,[143] but externally requiring such a change of arrangement as was necessary to adapt it to a sloping instead of a flat roof. This could have been effected by countersinking it into the roof, so as to make it in fact 3 ridges in those parts where the light was admitted, though the regular slope of the roof was retained between these openings, so that neither the ridge nor the continuity of the lines of the roof was interfered with. This would effect all that was required, and in the most beautiful manner; it moreover agrees with all the remains of Greek temples that now exist, as well as with all the descriptions that have been handed down to us from antiquity.
This arrangement will be understood from the section of the Parthenon (Woodcut No. 153), restored in accordance with the above explanation, which agrees perfectly with all that remains on the spot, as well as with all the accounts we have of that celebrated temple. The same system applies even more easily to the great hexastyle at Pæstum and to the beautiful little Temple of Apollo at Bassæ, in Phigaleia (Woodcut No. 149), and in fact to all regular Greek temples. Indeed, it seems impossible to account for the peculiarities of that temple except on some such theory as this. Any one who studies the plan (Woodcut No. 149) will see at once what pains were taken to bring the internal columns exactly into the spaces between those of the external peristyle. The effect inside is clumsy, and never would have been attempted were it not that practically their position was seen from the outside, and this could hardly have been so on any other hypothesis than that now proposed. An equally important point in the examination of this theory is that it applies equally to the exceptional ones. The side aisles, for instance, of the great temple at Agrigentum were, as before mentioned, lighted by side windows; the central one could only be lighted from the roof, and it is easy to see how this could be effected by introducing openings between the telamones, as shown in Woodcut No. 154.
In the great Temple of Jupiter Olympius (Woodcut No. 196), as described by Vitruvius,[144] the nave had two storeys of columns all round, and the middle was open to the sky. It is suggested, however, by Dr. Dorpfield that the temple in Vitruvius’s time was incomplete, and that subsequently when Hadrian erected the great chryselephantine statue in it the nave may have lost its hypæthral source of light. (In that case its light may have been introduced through the court or hypæthron in front of the cell, such as is shown on the plan in Woodcut No. 196.)
The Ionic temples of Asia are all too much ruined to enable us to say exactly in what manner, and to what extent, this mode of lighting was applied to them, though there seems no doubt that the method there adopted was very similar in all its main features.
The little Temple of Nikè Apteros and the temple on the Ilissus, were both too small to require any complicated arrangement of the sort, but the Ionic temple of Pandrosus was lighted by windows which still remain at the west end, so that it is possible the same expedient may have been adopted to at least some extent in the Asiatic examples. The latter, however, is, with one exception, the sole instance of windows in any European-Greek temple, the only other example being in the very exceptional temple at Agrigentum. It is valuable, besides, as showing how little the Greeks were bound by rules or by any fancied laws of symmetry.
As is shown in the plan, elevation, and view (Woodcuts Nos. 155, 156, 157), the Erechtheium consisted, properly speaking, of 3 temples grouped together; and it is astonishing what pains the architect took to prevent their being mistaken for one. The porticoes of two of them are on different levels, and the third or caryatide porch is of a different height and different style. Every one of these features is perfectly symmetrical in itself, and the group is beautifully balanced and arranged; and yet no Gothic architect in his wildest moments could have conceived anything more picturesquely irregular than the whole becomes. Indeed, there can be no greater mistake than to suppose that Greek architecture was fettered by any fixed laws of formal symmetry: each detail, every feature, every object, such as a hall or temple, which could be considered as one complete and separate whole, was perfectly symmetrical and regular; but no two buildings—no two apartments—if for different purposes, were made to look like one. On the contrary, it is quite curious to observe what pains they took to arrange their buildings so as to produce variety and contrast, instead of formality or singleness of effect. Temples, when near one another, were never placed parallel, nor were even their propylæa and adjuncts ever so arranged as to be seen together or in one line. The Egyptians, as before remarked, had the same feeling, but carried it into even the details of the same building, which the Greeks did not. In this, indeed, as in almost every other artistic mode of expression, they seem to have hit exactly the happy medium, so as to produce the greatest harmony with the greatest variety, and to satisfy the minutest scrutiny and the most refined taste, while their buildings produced an immediate and striking effect on even the most careless and casual beholders.
Owing to the Erechtheium having been converted into a Byzantine church during the Middle Ages, almost all traces of its original internal arrangements have been obliterated, and this, with the peculiar combination of three temples in one, makes it more than usually difficult to restore. The annexed plan, however, meets all the requirements of the case in so far as they are known. To the east was a portico of 6 columns, between two of which stood an altar to Dione, mentioned in the inscription enumerating the repairs in 409 B.C.;[145] inside, according to Pausanias,[146] were three altars, the principal dedicated to Poseidon, the others to Butes and Hephaistos. From its form, it is evident the roof must have been supported by pillars, and they probably also bore a clerestory, by which, I believe, with rare exceptions, all Greek temples were lighted.
The Temple of Pandrosus was on a lower level, and was approached by a flight of steps, corresponding with which was a chamber, containing the well of salt water, and which apparently was the abode of the serpent-god Erechthonios, mentioned by Herodotus.[147] The central cell was lighted by the very exceptional expedient of 3 windows in the western wall, which looked directly into it. Beyond this, on the south, was the beautiful caryatide porch, where, if anywhere within the temple, grew the olive sacred to Minerva. Unfortunately, our principal guide, Pausanias, does not give us a hint where the olive-tree grew, and on the whole I am inclined to believe it was in the enclosure outside the western wall of the temple,[148] and to which a doorway leads directly from the Temple of Pandrosus, as well as one under the north portico, the use of which it is impossible to explain unless we assume that this enclosure was really of exceptional importance.
TEMPLE OF DIANA AT EPHESUS.
A history of Grecian architecture can hardly be considered as complete without some mention of the great Ephesian temple, which was one of the largest and most gorgeous of all those erected by the Greeks, and considered by them as one of the seven wonders of the world. Strange to say, till very recently even its situation was utterly unknown; and even now that it has been revealed to us by the energy and intelligence of Mr. Wood, scarcely enough remains to enable him to restore the plan with anything like certainty. This is the more remarkable, as it was found buried under 17 to 20 feet of mud, which must have been the accumulation of centuries, and might, one would have thought, have preserved considerable portions of it from the hand of the spoiler.
The annexed plan compiled from Mr. Wood’s researches embodies all the information he has been able to obtain. The dimensions of the double peristyle, and the number and position of its 96 columns, are quite certain. So are the positions of the north, south, and west walls of the cella; so that the only points of uncertainty are the positions of the four columns necessary to make up the 100 mentioned by Pliny,[149] and the internal arrangement of the cella itself and of the opisthodomus.
With regard to the first there seems very little latitude for choice. Two must have stood between the antæ. The position of the other two must be determined either by bringing forward the wall enclosing the stairs, so as to admit of the intercolumniation east and west being the same as that of the other columns, or of spacing them so as to divide the inner roof of the pronaos into equal squares. I have preferred the latter as that which appears to me the most probable.[150]
The west wall of the cella and the position of the statue having been found, the arrangement of the pillars surrounding this apartment does not admit of much latitude. Fragments of these pillars were found, but not in situ, showing that they were in two heights and supported a gallery. I have spaced them intermediately between the external pillars, as in the Temple of Apollo at Bassæ (Woodcut No. 149), because I do not know of any other mode by which this temple could be lighted, except by an opaion, as suggested for that temple; and if this is so they must have been so spaced. Carrying out this system it leaves an opisthodomus which is an exact square, which is so likely a form for that apartment that it affords considerable confirmation to the correctness of this restoration that it should be so. The four pillars it probably contained are so spaced as to divide it into nine equal squares.
Restored in this manner the temple appears considerably less in dimensions than might have been supposed from Pliny’s text. His measurements apply only to the lower step of the platform, which is found to be 421 ft. by 238. But the temple itself, from angle to angle of the peristyles, is only 342 ft. by 164, instead of 425 ft. by 220 of Pliny.
Assuming this restoration to be correct there can be very little doubt as to the position of the thirty-six columnæ cælatæ, of which several specimens have been recovered by Mr. Wood, and are now in the British Museum. They must have been the sixteen at either end and the four in the pronaos, shown darker in the woodcut.
From the temple standing on a platform so much larger than appears necessary, it is probable that pedestals with statues stood in front of each column, and if this were so, the sculptures, with the columnæ cælatæ and the noble architecture of the temple itself, must have made up a combination of technic, æsthetic, and phonetic art such as hardly existed anywhere else, and which consequently the ancients were quite justified in considering as one of the wonders of the world.
MUNICIPAL ARCHITECTURE.
Very little now remains of all the various classes of municipal and domestic buildings which must once have covered the land of Greece, and from what we know of the exquisite feelings for art that pervaded that people, they were certainly not less beautiful, though more ephemeral, than the sacred buildings whose ruins still remain to us.
There are, however, two buildings in Athens which, though small, give us most exalted ideas of their taste in such matters. The first, already alluded to, usually known as the Tower of the Winds, is a plain octagonal building about 45 ft. in height by 24 in width, ornamented by 2 small porches of 2 pillars each, of the Corinthian order, the capitals of which are represented in Woodcut No. 141. Its roof, like the rest of the building, is of white marble, and of simple but very elegant design, and below this is a frieze of 8 large figures, symbolical of the 8 winds, from which the tower takes its name, they in fact being the principal objects and ornaments of the building, the most important use of which appears to have been to contain a clepsydra or water-clock.
The other building, though smaller, is still more beautiful. It is known as the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, and consists of a square base 12 ft. high by 9 ft. wide, on which stands a circular temple adorned by 6 Corinthian columns, which, with their entablature and the roof and pedestal they support, make up 22 ft. more, so that the whole height of the monument is only 34 ft. Notwithstanding these insignificant dimensions, the beauty of its columns (Woodcut No. 143) and of their entablature—above all, the beauty of the roof and of the finial ornament, which crowns the whole and is unrivalled for elegance even in Greek art—make up a composition so perfect that nothing in any other style or age can be said to surpass it.[151] If this is a fair index of the art that was lavished on the smaller objects, the temples hardly give a just idea of all that have perished.
THEATRES.
In extreme contrast with the buildings last described, which were among the smallest, came the theatres, which were the largest, of the monuments the Greeks seem ever to have attempted.
The annexed plan of one at Dramyssus, the ancient Dodona, will give an idea of their forms and arrangements. Its dimensions may be said to be gigantic, being 443 ft. across; but even this, though perhaps the largest in Greece, is far surpassed by many in Asia Minor. What remains of it, however, is merely the auditorium, and consists only of ranges of seats arranged in a semicircle, but without architectural ornament. In all the examples in Europe, the proscenium,[152] which was the only part architecturally ornamented, has perished, so that, till we can restore this with something like certainty, the theatres hardly come within the class of Architecture as a fine art.
The theatre of Dionysus at Athens, which was excavated and laid bare in 1862-63, measures only 165 ft. in its greatest width. Built on the south side of the Acropolis, the natural slope forming the rising ground was utilised for the foundations of the tiers of seats which, in some cases, and particularly at the back, were hewn in the rock; so that they were carried back 294 ft. from the centre of the orchestra. In the theatre of Epidaurus, which, according to Pausanias, was the most beautiful theatre in the world, the lines of the seats are continued on each side of the orchestra so as to form a horse-shoe on plan; the foundations of the stage, the projecting side wings with staircases on each side, and other buildings belonging to the stage are still preserved.
In Asia Minor some of the theatres have their proscenia adorned with niches and columns, and friezes of great richness; but all these belong to the Roman period, and, though probably copies of the mode in which the Greeks ornamented theirs, are so corrupt in style as to prevent their being used with safety in attempting to restore the earlier examples.
Many circumstances would indeed induce us to believe that the proscenia of the earlier theatres may have been of wood or bronze, or both combined, and heightened by painting and carving to a great degree of richness. This, though appropriate and consonant with the origin and history of the drama, would be fatal to the expectation of anything being found to illustrate its earliest forms.
TOMBS.
Like the other Aryan races, the Greeks never were tomb-builders, and nothing of any importance of this class is found in Greece, except the tombs of the early Pelasgic races, which were either tumuli, or treasuries, as they are popularly called. There are, it is true, some headstones and small pillars of great beauty, but they are monolithic, and belong rather to the department of Sculpture than of Architecture. In Asia Minor there are some important tombs, some built and others cut in the rock. Some of the latter have been described before in speaking of the tombs of the Lycians. The built examples which remain almost all belong to the Roman period, though the typical and by far the most splendid example of Greek tombs was that erected by Artemisia to the memory of her husband Mausolus at Halicarnassus. We scarcely know enough of the ethnic relations of the Carians to be able to understand what induced them to adopt so exceptional a mode of doing honour to their dead. With pure Greeks it must have been impossible, but the inhabitants of these coasts were of a different race, and had a different mode of expressing their feelings.
Till Sir Charles Newton’s visit to Halicarnassus in 1856 the very site of this seventh wonder of the world was a matter of dispute. We now know enough to be able to restore the principal parts with absolute certainty, and to ascertain its dimensions and general appearance within very insignificant limits of error.[153]
The dimensions quoted by Pliny[154] are evidently extracted from a larger work, said to have been written by the architect who erected it, and which existed at his time. Every one of them has been confirmed in the most satisfactory manner by recent discoveries, and enable us to put the whole together without much hesitation.
Sufficient remains of the quadriga, which crowned the monument, have been brought home to give its dimensions absolutely. All the parts of the Ionic order are complete. The steps of the pyramid have been found and portions of the three friezes, and these, with Pliny’s dimensions and description, are all that are required to assure us that its aspect must have been very similar to the form represented in Woodcut No. 162. There can be little doubt with regard to the upper storey, but in order to work out to the dimensions given by Pliny (411 ft. in circumference) and those found cut out in the rock (462 ft.), the lower storey must be spread out beyond the upper to that extent, and most probably something after the manner shown in the woodcut.
The building consisted internally of two chambers superimposed the one on the other, each 52 ft. 6 in. by 42 ft.—the lower one being the vestibule to the tomb beyond—the upper was surrounded by a peristyle of 36 columns. Externally the height was divided into three equal portions of 37 ft. 6 in. each (25 cubits), one of which was allotted to the base—one to the pyramid with its meta—and one to the order between them. These with 14 ft., the height of the quadriga, and the same dimension belonging to the lower entablature, made up the height of 140 Greek feet[155] given it by Pliny.
Though its height was unusually great for a Greek building, its other dimensions were small. It covered only 13,230 ft. The admiration therefore which the Greeks expressed regarding it must have arisen, first, from the unusual nature of its design and of the purpose to which it was applied, or perhaps more still from the extent and richness of its sculptured decorations, of the beauty of which we are now enabled to judge, and can fully share with them in admiring.
Another, but very much smaller, tomb of about the same age was found by Mr. Newton at Cnidus, and known as the Lion Tomb, from the figure of that animal, now in the British Museum, which crowned its summit. Like many other tombs found in Asia and in Africa, it follows the type of the Mausoleum in its more important features. It possesses a base—a peristyle—a pyramid of steps—and, lastly, an acroterion or pedestal meant to support a quadriga or statue, or some other crowning object, which appropriately terminated the design upwards.
Several examples erected during the Roman period will be illustrated when speaking of the architecture of that people, all bearing the impress of the influence the Mausoleum had on the tomb architecture of that age; but unfortunately we cannot yet go backwards and point out the type from which the design of the Mausoleum itself was elaborated. The tombs of Babylon and Passargadæ are remote both geographically and artistically, though not without certain essential resemblances. Perhaps the missing links may some day reward the industry of some scientific explorer.
CYRENE.
At Cyrene there is a large group of tombs of Grecian date and with Grecian details, but all cut in the rock, and consequently differing widely in their form from those just described. It is not clear whether the circumstance of this city possessing such a necropolis arose from its proximity to Egypt, and consequently from a mere desire to imitate that people, or from some ethnic peculiarity. Most probably the latter, though we know so little about them that it is difficult to speak with precision on such a subject.[156]
These tombs are chiefly interesting from many of the details of the architecture still retaining the colour with which they were originally adorned. The triglyphs of the Doric order are still painted blue,[157] as appears to have been the universal practice, and the pillars are outlined by red lines. The metopes are darker, and are adorned with painted groups of figures, the whole making up one of the most perfect examples of Grecian coloured decoration which still remain.
There is another tomb at the same place—this time structural—which is interesting not so much for any architectural beauty it possesses as from its belonging to an exceptional type. It consists now only of a circular basement—the upper part is gone—and is erected over an excavated rock-cut tomb. There seem to be several others of the same class in the necropolis, and they are the only examples known except those at Marathos, one of which is illustrated above (Woodcut No. 122). As before hinted, the Syrian example does not appear to be very ancient, but we want further information before speaking positively on this subject. No one on the spot has attempted to fix with precision the age of the Cyrenean examples; nor have they been drawn in such detail as is requisite for others to ascertain the fact. They may be as late as the time of the Romans, but can hardly be dated as prior to the age of Alexander the Great.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
We have nothing left but imperfect verbal descriptions of the domestic, and even of the palatial architecture of Greece, and, consequently, can only judge imperfectly of its forms. Unfortunately, too, Pompeii, though but half a Greek city, belongs to too late and too corrupt an age to enable us to use it even as an illustration; but we may rest assured that in this, as in everything else, the Greeks displayed the same exquisite taste which pervades not only their monumental architecture, but all their works in metal or clay, down to the meanest object, which have been preserved to our times.
It is probable that the forms of their houses were much more irregular and picturesque than we are in the habit of supposing them to have been. They seem to have taken such pains in their temples—in the Erechtheium, for instance, and at Eleusis—to make every part tell its own tale, that anything like forced regularity must have been offensive to them, and they would probably make every apartment exactly of the dimensions required, and group them so that no one should under any circumstances be confounded with another.
This, however, with all the details of their domestic arts, must now remain to us as mere speculation, and the architectural history of Greece must be confined to her temples and monumental erections. These suffice to explain the nature and forms of the art, and to assign to it the rank of the purest and most intellectual of all the styles which have yet been invented or practised in any part of the world.